Englishtown-based Nonna’s Citi Cucina focuses on family-style food in a cozy atmosphere

by Jessica Jones-Gorman • Photos By Am essé Photography

Joseph Mosco and Rob Kash had already found success with five different New Jersey restaurants in 2002 when they devised a new business model and opened Nonna’s Citi Cucina, an English town based family-style eatery with oversized portions and an innovative cuisine.

“We wanted this to be a family spot—a fun and simple place where people could come for a home cooked dinner or to host their baptisms, first communions, and other milestone events,” Mosco said, detailing a location inspired by his own nonna’s (an affectionate term in Italian for “grandmother”) Brooklyn home, where he’d travel every Sunday from Jersey with his parents. The hot pots of delicious sauce, the giant dinners, and Sunday feasts equipped with fresh bread, huge plates of salad, and pasta— Mosco and Kash put every detail of their own fond childhood memories on paper before building the space.

“We wanted a restaurant that was all about family, friends, and the celebrations that bring us together,” Mosco said. “So we dug up all of our family’s recipes, created a menu filled with oversized platters so everyone gets to share, and built a comfortable ambiance with paper topped tables and crayons for the kids, as well as a large cozy fireplace and original hand painted murals.”

For the restaurateurs, it was a new formula, but a familiar field. Together, they started opening restaurants in 1992, when creating the concept for Café Colore, which they dubbed a “unique Italian eatery” that filled a void in New Jersey and deviated from the red sauce norm. There, they brought to Monmouth County the first brick oven Neapolitan pizza, featuring fresh herbs, vegetables, and seafood native to the Mediterranean. The hip, upscale, but casual dining experience was the first in what would become the pair’s Great Restaurants fine dining umbrella.

“No matter what the cuisine, no matter what the ambiance, all of the Great Restaurants’ concepts stick to the same basic formula—key ingredients that have been our recipe for success,” Mosco said. “Whether it’s pizza, pasta, and antipasto, fresh Tex-Mex made from locally sourced produce, or delicious farm-to-table, there is something for everyone at one of our central New Jersey restaurants.”

At Nonna’s, customers will find Italian mainstays with a modern twist: appetizers include fried calamari with marinara and garlic aioli dipping sauces, meatball sliders on crostini bread topped with melted mozzarella, lobster crab cakes, and crisp wontons stuffed with sweet sausage, ricotta, and roasted peppers. Individual entrees include classic pasta dishes like penne bolognese, rigatoni vodka, and gnocchi carbonara. Grilled chicken is served with shitake mushrooms, artichokes, and roasted tomatoes in a rosemary white wine sauce. There’s also salmon, snapper, bronzino, and jumbo sea scallops, and a selection of short ribs, filet mignon, and Black Angus steak.

“Many of customers in parties of four or more opt for our family style menu, which includes three courses of appetizers and salads, pastas and entrees, and traditional Italian dessert and coffee,” Mosco said. “It’s a really nice way of gathering the whole family for a shared meal.”

In that format, the restaurant’s most popular choices include a mixed hot and cold antipasto featuring fried calamari, fresh mozzarella, and roasted peppers. Nonna’s unique recipes for stuffed clams (served with heaps of specially seasoned fresh bread crumbs) and stuffed mushrooms filled with sausage, fontina, and spinach in a lemon butter sauce are also among the restaurant’s most popular dishes. “Not Your Everyday Sunday Sauce,” loaded with sweet Italian sausage, beef short ribs, Nonna’s Meatballs, “gravy,” and rigatoni, is served every day for $21.

The restaurant also features a wine list with more than 60 varieties of red and white, as well as a selection of seasonal specialty cocktails: in one, Italian Amarena black cherries are muddled with fresh basil and served over two ounces of premium vodka; there’s also a dark rum mojito spiced with seasonal fruit, while a classic Italian Negroni mixes Italian vermouth with Campari and gin, topped by an orange twist.

Desserts are homemade and individually portioned, but a family-style sampler platter features a mix of all of the restaurant’s sweetest treats.

There are three areas for private parties which can seat anywhere from 30 to 125, and daily specials are offered seven days a week.

“The idea for Nonna’s is to create a cozy, home-like atmosphere where our customers can relax and enjoy delicious dishes,” Mosco concluded. “And I think we deliver a menu here that would make even Nonna proud.”

Nonna’s Citi Cucina
190 Route 9 North, Englishtown
732.536.9050 / nonnasnj.net

Cuisine: Modern Family Style Italian
Hours: Monday-Thursday: Noon – 10 p.m.
Friday-Saturday: Noon – 11 p.m.
Sunday: 2 p.m. – 9 p.m.
Price: Appetizers $10 – $14
Entrees $15 – $42
Family Style Meals: $26, $32 or $39
All major credit cards accepted

Service: Friendly
Bar: Full bar with a focus on a fine wines and a range of mixed drinks.
Parking: Street & Valet
Private Parties: Yes