People who stopped in to check out Alex & Teresa’s in the first few months after its opening were greeted by Sinatra tunes and floor-to-ceiling murals of the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building. If they took these cues to mean that they had just entered a New York Italian pizza-pasta joint, they were in for a surprise when they opened the menu.

Instead of a catalog of Italian-American favorites, they found offerings like cuoppo di Gennarino, polpettine alla diavola and trofie salsiccia e friarelli. Instead of another strip mall Italian-American eatery, these lucky gastronomic explorers had stumbled across a restaurant specializing in authentic Italian cuisine.