Things to know about Fabio's Antica Cucina, which opened in downtown Syracuse on Wednesday. The pizza oven - and all the flour used in it - comes from Italy. All the pasta, bread and gnocchi are handmade. The "priestchoker" pasta, a dough enriched with ricotta and herbs, gets its name from Fabio Santalucia's home village in Italy, where once upon a time someone had hoped a greedy priest would choke on a mouthful of pasta. Paco, the massive fish swimming in the tank in the bar, eats garlic and tomatoes. ("He's a vegetarian," Santalucia says.) The children's menus come inside viewfinders. (Why don't more restaurants do this?)
And, perhaps most importantly, the new restaurant is a venture that blends the skills of a first-generation Italian chef with the Syracuse family that once ran The Villa on Burnet Avenue and Lodi Street.
