Pass the pasta! Nucci’s Gelati is luring lunchtime regulars with authentic Italian cuisine By: Eva Wasney Posted: 5:49 PM CDT Tuesday, Jun. 20, 2023

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This article was published 20/06/2023 (1142 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When the mercury rises, Winnipeg’s Little Italy becomes a hotbed of patios and people-watching.

Nucci’s Gelati has been presiding over the seasonal shift on the Corydon strip for the last 47 years, serving passersby sweet frozen treats under a familiar brick archway and a banner of green, white and red.

Recently, however, another kind of shift has been taking place inside the city’s original gelati shop — one that has staff swapping ice cream scoops for frying pans.

If you didn’t know about Nucci’s Italian lunch menu, you’d be forgiven. It’s a concept the current owners have been building for years with little fanfare in an effort to ensure the menu is up to snuff.

“I’m just very picky because I want people to be happy,” says Maria Pepe, daughter of the shop’s late founders, Gino and Rosa Nucci.

Maria and her husband, Michael Pepe, have been overseeing the day-to-day operations at the family-owned business for the last six years. In that time, they’ve added a full-scale kitchen to the gelati shop and have started serving up pastas and parmigianas to attentive daytime customers.

The lunch menu has never been a secret, per se, but with patrons who have been faithful gelati followers for more than 40 years, the savoury signage past the ice cream counter has been something of an afterthought.

“They’ll come up to pay and go, ‘When did you put this here?’” Maria says.

Despite the quiet rollout, Nucci’s food menu has found a loyal lunch crowd.

“Ninety-nine per cent of the time you have to reserve or you won’t get a table,” she adds. “This is all based on word of mouth.”

Maria and Michael have been married for 43 years. She grew up working at various family businesses on the Corydon Avenue strip and he built a career as a commercial baker. After Gino died in 2011, Michael got more involved in the gelati-making process under Rosa’s direction.

“Making gelati and baking is basically the same idea, so I had some knowledge and I used to watch her all the time,” Michael says of his mother-in-law, who died in 2020.

When the couple started running Nucci’s full time, they wanted to expand the seasonal summer business while staying true to the items that have made the shop a local institution. Family came first when designing the food menu.

“Basically, what we do at home is what we cook,” Michael says. “It’s really traditional, nothing fancy — just basic ingredients, which are the best.”

Most of the dishes are based on recipes Maria grew up with and learned to cook by watching her mom and aunt. Michael, who does the bulk of the cooking at Nucci’s, has been making pasta and sauce since he was a boy in Calabria, Italy. He’s taken pains to learn the culinary traditions of his wife’s family — which is probably for the best.

“Nothing comes out of that kitchen unless it’s approved,” Maria says with a smile. “I have to oversee everything; I’m very finicky.”

The couple runs the lunch program without additional staff and, despite spending “23 hours a day together,” they still manage to enjoy each other’s company. “He’s my best friend,” Maria says.

Adding food to the menu has allowed Nucci’s to become a year-round dining and catering operation — a particularly helpful venture during the pandemic.

While summer will always be the busiest time of year for one of Little Italy’s founding families, the next generation is so far finding success in a new tradition.

“We’re blessed,” Maria says. “We love what we do.”

eva.wasney@winnipegfreepress.com

Twitter: @evawasney