Frank Scibelli’s dream of owning his own restaurant that served up his favorite home made dishes became a reality 15 years ago, and since then has thrived. Mama Ricotta’s has grown from a small establishment to a 200-seat restaurant that has won nearly every major award there is to win in Charlotte.
Creative Loafing: You use authentic Italian recipes that have been in your family for years; what do you do to make them your own?
Frank Scibelli: There are several things that we do to make these dishes my own. First, we may play around with ingredients. For example, our lasagna is very similar to a version that my grandmother made, but we add in our homemade sausage. I thought that it was a great ingredient, and it really fit in the dish. We also took the base recipe for meatballs and came up with a version that uses turkey and prosciutto. Some items, like our tomato sauce, don’t get changed much at all.
When it comes to ingredients, what kinds of things do you look for to add to your dishes?
I am always looking for new ingredients to modify our menu. I was on the National Pork Board’s Celebrated Chef advisory board last year, and we added some Berkshire Pork. We also opened Big Daddy’s Burger Bar, and learned a lot about ground beef in the process. We are now using Myers Beef, which is a hormone-free, grass-fed product. I think that it has a great rich flavor.
What goals have you set for yourself in relation to being in the food business?
I want to continue to get better at what I do. This becomes more of a challenge as we grow.
This article appears in Dec 30, 2008 – Jan 6, 2009.
My family and I (party of 14) dined at your restaurant this past Saturday night (Oct 12). The Chef was excellent as the food was absolutely delicious. Unfortunately, you had a Hostess working that night that left our mouth literally hanging open due to her rudeness. She was not professional and made rude comments and treated us like we just did not matter. We had a member of our family that needed to sit down and she had a no-care attitude. When she walked us finally to our table she made a comment about our attitude needing to change!! We were totally shocked and I simply said hold up and she interrupted and pointed to a young guy and said thats my manager I assumed if I wanted to complain. I knew then there was no need at that point because they were probably friends for her to say that. That is why I am reaching out to you direct. I also took in outside birthday cakes for 2 of my family members . The family never got to see their cakes because they cut the cakes and served it before candles could be placed or them getting to see how pretty they were. I was totally blown away AND had to pay $2 per head for that treatment . Mama Ricottas has excellent food but we will not be able to go back with such behavior. The hostess had dark long hair and was wearing a shirt with lots of gold on it. I failed to obtain her name. If you allow customers to be treated like this, delicious food can not make up for it. My apologies but felt you needed to know as the owner.