New York City restaurateurs Fabio Casella and Giuseppe Manco, along with Eleonora Calvacchi opened San Matteo Italian Restaurant & Bar on Dec. 4 in Suite 145/A at the University Village Shops in Estero.
The decades of experience between the three is what guests can expect when dining at San Matteo, which offers authentic Italian classics with a modern touch.
Originally from Naples, Italy, patrons of San Matteo can trust they are in good hands with Chef Manco. From decor and dishware down to ingredients, Italian influence is everywhere at the 270-seat restaurant.
Manco has been in the pizza industry for 24 years, starting off very young in his family’s restaurant in Italy.
Casella and Manco have a combined lengthy list of awards and accolades, including being a three-time world champion at the International Pizza Challenge in Las Vegas, working as an executive chef at Iron Chef Judge Donatella Arpaia restaurants and being a two-time champion for the Burger Bash held at the New York City Wine and Food Festival.
While the pizza and pasta have the awards to back up why guests should stop in to San Matteo, Manco said a few other unique dishes on the menu are worth a try.
For starters, Manco suggests the Montanara, offered in classic, Montanara di Cetara and Montanara Genovese.
“This pizza has three different cooking processes,” Manco said, which is first frying the dough with Italian sunflower oil, topping the Montanara before putting it in the conventional oven and finishing it off in the brick oven.
“The result of very crispy dough and then an explosion of flavor in the dough,” he said. “It’s very particular with those three cooking processes. It makes you feel light and all of the grease comes out so it’s very light and digestible.”
As far as pasta goes, Manco said you can’t go wrong with the Paccheri alla Genovese, described as a dish with larger rigatoni pasta with slow cooked veal and onion ragu, parmigiano and basil.
When Manco says slow cooked, he means it, as the veal and onion ragu take 16 hours to cook. “The veal is so tender and blends very good with the onions,” he said. “It’s a very Neapolitan dish.”
The Spaghettoni Con Datterini is also a must-try according to Manco, which is a pasta dish that features yellow and red Datterini tomatoes from Corbara, micro basil and extra virgin olive oil.
Corbara tomatoes are from Mount Vesuvius, giving it a particularly sweet taste. “Whoever tries this, they fall in love,” Manco said of the dish.
San Matteo also offers a selection of imported and domestic wines to pair with its top quality dry-aged prime meats from Pat LaFrieda, which supplies some of the country’s top restaurants.
If patrons still have some room left after starters and the main entree, the dessert menu has some special sweets like the Ricotta & Pere. The dessert, a delicate ricotta cream filled with pear pieces in between two soft hazelnut cookies and finished with a dust of powdered sugar, is imported from a pastry chef on the Amalfi Coast of Italy.
The original San Matteo location was founded in 2010 in New York’s Upper East Side by brothers Fabio and Ciro Casella. Executive Chef Manco and General Manager Calvacchi were also previous owners and operators of Three Mani in Pasta Restaurant in New York but have now partnered with Fabio to open their first Southwest Florida venture.
For Manco, it was a long journey of successes and losses to get to the newest location in Estero.
He first relocated from Naples, Italy to Naples, Florida, in 2010 before moving to New York City in 2013 where he earned great success and respect in the culinary world before the pandemic shut down the city in 2020.
After having sales drop 90% due to COVID-19, Manco’s restaurant in the Upper East Side was then looted three days after reopening. Soon after, he moved back to Southwest Florida and became the pizza chef at Aldos Italian Table & Bar, which is now San Matteo.
“I was only the pizza chef in the beginning,” he said. “Then, we decided to put in an offer to buy with Fabio.”
Manco said being back in Southwest Florida feels like starting where it all began. “It was the best choice,” he said. “There is always a reason why. It feels special to be here.”
San Matteo is open from 4 to 10 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays. However, Manco said the restaurant will soon be open seven days a week starting Jan. 15.
