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When customers walk into chef Marco Barrila’s newest restaurant — Insatiable Eats Pastaria in Riverhead — he greets them warmly with “Welcome to my home. Buongiorno!”
For Barrila, home as a youth was Messina, Sicily, where he lived until moving to New York City at 24. In 2010, he formed his Insatiable Eats catering company and became one of the most popular caterers in the Hamptons, as well as a Food Network favorite. He appeared on the popular program “Chopped” and at Food Network events.
Barrila also owns the Shinnecock Lobster Factory in Southampton.
Along with the Riverhead Chamber of Commerce, Riverhead Town Supervisor Yvette Aguiar, and town board officials, Barrila celebrated the grand opening Monday of Insatiable Eats Pastaria. The restaurant and take-out market, owned by Barrila and his wife Sheila Minkel, is part of an effort to expand the business — and Sicily — to the Long Island’s north fork, Barrila said.
“We were trying to expand our catering kitchen, but this place looked so beautiful so I decided to remodel to create a restaurant market eatery where you could come and taste food,” Barrila said of his new eatery at 300 E. Main St. in Riverhead. “We’ll have a bar gastronomico with alcohol and food, broccoli rabe, seafood, chicken rolls. You can pick and choose whatever you want.”
“I try to bring as much Sicilian flavor in everything I do,” he added.
Sicilian bakers, machines and recipes
Long Islanders can turn to Insatiable Eats for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Starting at 8 a.m. customers can sit at the bar and order from a variety of cornetti and bomboloni, or Italian croissants and doughnuts. Drink wise, customers can order hot and fresh beverages from a cappuccino maker imported from Italy, which Barrila described as the Ferrari of cappuccino machines.
At the back of the restaurant, customers order up pizza alla pala. Employees cut slices of the sweet tartufina bianca with fresh mozzarella, buffalo ricotta, mascarpone and shaved truffles and the savory capricciosa with fresh mozzarella, artichokes, mushrooms, black olives, ham and basil.
Behind the pizza counter, master baker Alessandro Natoli oversees and advises the kitchen.
“The master baker, he come here for two, three months to train our people how to think Italian, how to think Sicilian, how to do the perfect recipe,” Barrila said. “We can produce everything, but I want to be original. I want to bring Sicily here.”
From 5-9 p.m., Insatiable Eats is a full service restaurant for dinner. Guests can order such specialties as lobster ravioli and frutta di mare alla fra diavolo and fresh pasta and specialty sauce options from the pasta bar.
“In the front of our store, there is a multi pasta machine, imported from Italy and designed by Emilio Miti,” the chef said. “What I’m trying to do here is educate the people about Italian food.”
With the dual restaurant and market model, customers can bring home more than a doggie bag.
“You can come in this restaurant and you can have a plate of fettuccine Bolognese and say ‘wow this is so good, I wish I could have it tomorrow too,'” Barrila said. “You can come in front, you can buy a quart of the Bolognese, the pasta, and you can have the same pasta you had here at home.”
Top photo: Master baker Alessandro Natoli with chef Marco Barrila.
