Pasta in his blood

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 26/05/2019 (2582 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In June 2012, Nick Zifarelli, owner of Nicolino’s Restaurant and its companion lounge the Orbit Room (4-2077 Pembina Hwy.), was in Poland to attend a UEFA European Championship match between Italy and the Republic of Ireland.

After getting off the train a couple kilometres from Poznan’s Municipal Stadium, Zifarelli found himself walking alongside a throng of Irish soccer fans, every last one of whom was singing and cheering at the top of their lungs, as they made their way to the game on foot.

“Even though I was obviously cheering for Italy, to be in the middle of this sea of green was absolutely mind-blowing,” says Zifarelli, seated in his restaurant’s dining area, cradling a demitasse of espresso in his right hand. “Even more incredible, they didn’t stop singing the entire match. I’ve been lucky enough to travel a fair bit in my life, but to be in a stadium with 40,000 rabid soccer fans in full song for close to three hours… I’ve got to tell you, that was an experience I’ll never forget.”

For that precise reason, Zifarelli has only been too happy this spring to let his locale serve as the unofficial headquarters for fans of Valour FC, the city’s new, Canadian Premier League franchise. Before each Valour home game, members of Red River Rising, a boisterous supporters group formed this past winter, have hooked up at Nicolino’s for a bite and/or drink, before parading en masse to Investors Group Field, 45 minutes ahead of kick-off.

“This whole ‘March to the Match’ thing has been really great for the city because it’s a fan experience we don’t often see in North America,” says Zifarelli, a competitive soccer player in his own right; at least he was until he was forced to hang up his cleats for good, thanks to five knee surgeries. “Obviously it’s been good for our place, too, as we’ve been getting a lot of people who’ve never been here before, who didn’t really have a clue what we were all about. So far, I like to think they’ve been pleasantly surprised.”

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We’ve always tried to be a little bit different because as an independent, we feel we have to be. If we operated like some chain (restaurant), what would be the attraction to coming here?– Nick Zifarelli

2019 marks 33 years since Zifarelli and his brother Lino purchased an existing pizza take-out joint, and 20 years since they re-branded it as Nicolino’s, an upscale Italian dining spot. These days, when people approach Zifarelli, the sole owner since 2002, and remark, “Wow, you’ve been in the restaurant business for over 30 years, that takes a lot of guts,” he shakes his head and responds, “Ha, that’s nothing. If you really want to talk about guts, let me tell you about my grandparents.”

Zifarelli’s maternal and paternal grandparents hail from Muro Lucano, a town of about 5,000 people in southern Italy. All four emigrated to Canada in 1961 — on the same boat, no less — to start anew. In Italy, one of his grandfathers worked the land while the other was a tile setter. But there was no work after the war, he says, so they picked up and left everything behind, hoping things would be better over here.

Because they grew up close to each other in their hometown, Zifarelli’s parents, Cosimo and Incoronata, knew each other to say hi when they arrived in Winnipeg with their parents. They ended up tying the knot in 1966, a few months after Incoronata accidentally broke the window of her future husband’s vehicle, a set of circumstances that led to him asking her out on a date for the first time.

“At least that’s the way I understand the story,” their son says with a chuckle.

For the next 12 years, Cosimo worked a factory job while his wife stayed home raising their four children. In 1978 Cosimo and Incoronata were one of four couples — all originally from Muro Lucano — who founded Paradise Pizza on Portage Avenue, a dining spot they practically built from the ground up, Zifarelli says.

“They laid all the bricks and tiles themselves, as well as doing most of the electrical. My first job ever — as a busboy — was at Paradise when I was nine or 10. I wore this goofy looking bow tie and, if I was lucky, got paid in pizza at the end of my shift.”

Zifarelli’s parents struck out on their own in 1983, opening Primavera Restaurant at the corner of Grant Avenue and Centennial Street. That’s where Zifarelli “really caught the restaurant bug.” During his senior year at Vincent Massey Collegiate, the straight-A student attended class in the mornings before heading to Primavera at noon to help his dad manage the dining room.

“My parents had all these dreams for me, to be a doctor or a dentist,” he says. “And it’s not like I didn’t like school — school went very, very well for me — but even while I was attending university I couldn’t shake the idea of having a restaurant of my own one day.”

Zifarelli was only 19 in 1986 when he and his brother purchased a Sorrento’s franchise on Pembina Highway situated, coincidentally, on a patch of land they used to ride their dirt bikes on, back when it “was all bush.” Their decision to completely revamp their menu came 13 years later, by which time they had moved into larger digs, a few doors down from their original address.

“The food at Sorrento’s was good quality but at the same time, quite simple,” Zifarelli explains. “So in 1999 we went hardcore Italian, trying to replicate what you’d find in some of the finer Italian restaurants in cities like Toronto and Montreal.”

One problem: to this day, guests whose idea of Italian cuisine starts and stops with Chef Boyardee are sometimes perplexed when their spaghetti Alfredo arrives at the table, and it isn’t close to what they’re flinging against the fridge at home.

“I will never, ever belittle anyone or pull any arrogant (crap) — that’s not my style — but when somebody complains their pasta isn’t cooked, I tell them they have to understand, what we serve is fresh pasta, which doesn’t chew like regular pasta,” Zifarelli says. “We have cavatelli that my mom… still makes in her little factory at home. You can cook that sucker for an hour and it will never, ever change. So what I tell people is certainly, we’ll make you another dish, no problem. But what you have to understand is it’s going to come out exactly the same way, so weigh that as your option.”

In addition to serving top-notch food, once described by former Free Press restaurant critic Marion Warhaft as “delectable” and “a knockout,” Nicolino’s has also gained a reputation as a vibrant, live music venue. Juno Award winners Sarah Harmer and Feist have both graced the Orbit Room’s stage, as have edgier acts such as Personality Crisis, Monuments Galore and Mohair Sweets.

The thinking behind that is two-fold: Yes, Zifarelli is a died-in-the-wool rocker — a framed guitar signed by members of the Stooges attests to that — but by presenting live music on a consistent basis, it not only expands his clientele but keeps his regular customers “on their toes,” he feels. If you go to a dive bar, you’re not overly surprised if something off the wall occurs, he explains. But if you drop into an upscale Italian restaurant for a late-night glass of wine and the next thing you know, out pops a punk rock group, you’ll probably be saying to yourself, “OK… wasn’t expecting that.”

“We’ve always tried to be a little bit different because as an independent, we feel we have to be. If we operated like some chain (restaurant), what would be the attraction to coming here? People could just go to the chain, where they know what they’re going to get,” he says. “Here we will never kick somebody out, just because the sign on the door says it’s closing time. If you’re sitting with a gal late at night, we’re not going to tell you it’s time to go, even if we haven’t had another customer for three hours. If we ever start operating based on what we feel is convenient for us, we’re not going to be around much longer.”

Before we go, here’s an interesting tidbit for any readers currently in the third trimester of their pregnancy, wondering what’s taking their little bundle of joy so long to enter the world. Not once, not twice but three times have women expecting a baby gone to Nicolino’s for lunch or dinner, before making a beeline across the street to Victoria Hospital’s maternity ward.

“Believe it or not, one lady did it twice,” Zifarelli says, polishing off the last of his espresso. “Both times she had the fettucine chili cream prawns, and both times she gave birth about an hour later.”

(In case you’re wondering, no, she and her husband didn’t name either of their children Nick.)

David Sanderson writes about Winnipeg-centric restaurants and businesses.

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca