Chef Stays True to Roma at Nonantum Ristorante

As Nonantum celebrates the  this week, Italian pride is displayed prominently in the streets, from the national flags waving from every light pole to the red, white and green divider lines that now guide traffic on the roads.

But it is also apparent inside , the rustic Italian restaurant that Anna and Benedetto “Ben” Cerasani have owned and operated for the past six years.

“I try to stay very close to the recipes that come from Roma,” explains Cerasani. “The restaurant is Vecchia Roma- ‘Old City Rome.’ I try to stay really close to the real Italian food, not mix it up. In Italy, we never hear of ‘chicken parm,’ you know?”

With his extensive training, it’s no wonder Cerasani feels so passionately about the cuisine of his native country. After five years in a Roman culinary school and another couple of years teaching chefs (“There was no money in that,” he laughs ruefully), Cerasani became executive chef of the famous Ristorante Corsetti in Rome. After several years there, he spent some time in a variety of restaurants around Northern Italy before settling back in his native Abruzzi.

There, Cerasani managed the Hotel Fillipone. Not just the kitchen nor even the hotel-wide food service: Cerasani ran the entire hotel from “the front desk to the rooms to the everything” while also serving as chef for the dining room – which sat over a thousand diners at a time.

According to Cerasani, the town of Abruzzi is known for its lavish weddings. With the Hotel Fillipone located in the gorgeous Abruzzi National Park, Cerasani was behind the scenes and in the kitchen of many such affairs, including the nuptials of a famous Italian soccer player that had over 800 invited guests.

It is small wonder that Cerasani prefers the intimacy and control of running Vecchia Roma.

When he and Anna bought the tiny Italian restaurant in 2006, it could seat a mere 19 diners. After expanding into the space next door and renovating a year later, they can now seat 43. They also received a full liquor license last year, allowing customers to- as Cerasani says – “stay an hour, hour and a half, two hours” enjoying their meal to the fullest.

But that doesn’t mean that Cerasani wants people to come in and tell him how they want their food prepared.

He is unquestionably master of his kitchen, and while he is quick to state that he doesn’t consider himself “better than everyone else,” he is equally eager to encourage his patrons to try the food the way he intended it to be eaten.

“When the waitress tells me he wants the cheese, with the seafood, I will go out with the cheese- because he’s the customer and you don’t want to say no. But I will say to him, ‘Look, try a bite, two bites, three without the cheese.’ And then he’ll see the cheese covers the taste and it doesn’t really match with the seafood.”

Cerasani doesn’t just want to tell his customers about this crucial distinction; he wants them to come in and learn about it.

This is why he and Anna started the bi-monthly cooking classes in Vecchia Roma’s kitchen that will resume in late August or September. These classes are focused on helping the small group of attendees learn how to make dishes that, while traditional Italian restaurant fare, can be easily reproduced in the home.

In the months that don’t see the Cerasanis hosting classes, Vecchia Roma has special wine dinners.

“We always like to have something going on,” laughs Anna.

Cerasani is very explicit about how his wine dinners may differ from those at other restaurants.

“If you are featuring the wine of Sicily, you serve the food of Sicily,” he states emphatically. “You don’t just have one dish that is Sicilian and the rest – you know, just good food. You need the food to complement the wine.”

It is this sort of commitment to authenticity that has no doubt contributed to Vecchia Roma being one of the top-rated Newton restaurant on Yelp, in spite of its being somewhat of a “hidden gem.” Cerasani knows what else has contributed to the restaurant’s success.

“Everything here has always been to order on the spot, except the tomato sauce because that tastes better after the flavors have a chance to sit a day or two,” Cerasani explains. “You might have to wait a minute, two minutes, maybe a little bit more. But you will like it more, too.”