Like my Sicilian grandparents, Mario Sanfilippo's family emigrated to Milwaukee from Porticello, Sicily, in search of a better life. After his uncle passed away, his grandparents relocated to the Boston area. Mario and his family joined them when he was 10, but always kept a piece of his Tyrrhenian seaside hometown in his heart.
His love of his mother's Sicilian cooking inspired him to seek work in restaurants, starting from a young age. He was just 11 when he got a job at a pizzeria, where he bused tables and washed dishes. Even while pursuing a bachelor's degree at the University of North Carolina, where he played soccer, he would pick up shifts at a local restaurant. He'd continue to do so, even while working in the banking industry.
"Somehow, I always ended up at a restaurant," Mario says.
In 1992, he left his job to open Mario's Trattoria, an Italian eatery in Dorchester, right in the heart of Boston's Irish section. Six years later, he opened Porticello Ristorante in South Easton, Massachusetts, south of Boston and east of Rhode Island. He shared more about his passion, journey, challenges, favorite dishes, lessons, and what he hopes customers take away.
What do you enjoy most about running a restaurant?
It's social. You've got instant gratification. You give somebody a good product, and they let you know about it. You develop a lot of different relationships along the way, whether it be vendors or patrons. I combined my accounting and all my background in business, and it was helpful opening up a restaurant and figuring out what would work numbers-wise and how we would do it. It's a combination of things, but I enjoy making people happy, which is part of it.
Porticello's housemade sauce
Was there a pivotal moment in your culinary career?
It was in 1998 when I went from a casual restaurant to a casual fine dining restaurant, where I had to step up my game and surround myself with different talents. I threw myself into it at that point. You think you know a lot, but you're always learning. When I went into the fine dining end of it and became a pretty good chef, I got to where I could handle it. If that key person decided to leave, I knew I would be OK and could move forward.
View from Porticello
What inspired you to name the restaurant after your birthplace?
Porticello will stay with me for the rest of my life. I lived there only for 10 years, but I consider myself very Italian. I stayed connected to the Italian people here in the Boston area and played soccer with all my Italian friends growing up. It kept me watching RAI (Radiotelevisione italiana) on television because my mom and dad could hardly speak English. So, growing up with all that, plus Porticello had a nice ring to it. It's where I was born.
We incorporate certain things into our dining. We're primarily an American Italian restaurant, but we make the arancini the way they do over there. I make panelle and incorporate them into antipasti. I also do pasta.
We incorporate these things and don't miss a beat when we have the Italian Italians that come and dine. They know that we're authentic.
Porticello serves pizza and pasta, as well as arancini and panelle.
What challenges have you faced?
Most people think about Umbria, Emilia-Romagna, or Tuscany. So it's kind of tough to push Sicilian food because they see it as more like peasant food. They don't look at Sicily the way they look at Tuscany. So it's a risk when you go into business if you want to tell people that you're Sicilian and push your food. There is still this discrimination.
That was the biggest challenge because you could easily embellish whatever write-up you come up with and not mention Sicily, just talk about Italian food and touch upon all the different regions. It's easy to do that. It's challenging to tell people you're from Sicily, but it came easily to me. I'm proud of where I come from, Porticello.
A vibrant antipasto plate
What are your favorite dishes to serve and why?
I like to cook with a lot of seafood. I like doing Chilean sea bass and cooking with meats, whether a sirloin, filet, or rack of lamb. Those are staples at Porticello. But I also like cooking Sicilian. I like making a salad with fennel, tomatoes, olives, and simple things like that. I like simplicity, so when I grill my seafood, I complement it with a nice salad or potato.
What lessons have you learned from being in the restaurant business for decades?
Don't stand still because you'll get run over. That's the biggest lesson. Don't worry about what you're doing and not what other people are doing. Worry about putting yourself first. Don't worry about the competition; worry about what you need to do to make yourself better. And it's worked financially. I mean, we get hit like everybody else. When there's a downturn in the economy, everybody feels it. We feel it. But if you're on good footing, you should be able to move forward.
Come for the flavors; stay for the experience.
What do you hope your customers take away from their dining experience at Porticello Ristorante?
I care about them and what I put out, and want them to return. But they know I've made a lot of friends along the way, and they know what I'm all about. I'm not about the money; I'm more about the experience.
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