Nonna Rosa's Recipes — From Naples in 1962 to East Austin Today
Rosa Deluca was born in Naples in 1940. She learned to cook from her mother, who learned from her mother before that. By 1962, when she had her own kitchen and her own family to feed, she had developed the recipes that Anthony grew up eating. Not professional recipes. Not restaurant recipes. Family recipes — the kind that get refined by hundreds of meals and passed down without ever being written down.
Anthony is Rosa's grandson. He grew up watching her cook in that kitchen, and then watching his mother replicate those dishes in their home in South Italy before the family moved to the United States. When Anthony decided to open a restaurant in 2018, he didn't look for inspiration anywhere else. He just cooked what Nonna Rosa had taught him. See also: how Anthony makes pasta fresh daily and the wood-fired oven he built himself.
The Kitchen in Naples
Nonna Rosa's kitchen was small by any standard. A two-burner stove, a marble work surface, and a pantry stocked with dried pasta, canned San Marzano tomatoes, and whatever she had picked up at the market that morning. She cooked every day. Not when she felt like it. Every single day.
The Recipes She Made
Sunday pasta was pappardelle with wild boar, which her husband sourced from a butcher in the neighborhood. Friday was baccalà — salt cod with tomatoes and olives. Meatballs appeared at any meal when someone was celebrating or mourning. Tiramisu was the dish she made when she wanted to show someone she loved them.
How Anthony Learned
He stood next to her and watched. She didn't measure anything. She knew when the pasta dough was right by how it felt under her hands. She knew the sauce was ready by the smell. Anthony asked questions and she answered them, but the real learning happened by watching and then doing it himself, badly, and then less badly, and eventually well.
Bringing the Recipes to Austin
When Anthony opened Nonna's Kitchen in 2018, he called his mother and asked her to come to Austin for two weeks. They cooked every dish together, wrote down what they could, and agreed on the versions that would go on the menu. Nonna Rosa had passed away by then. But every dish at this restaurant is an attempt to get as close to hers as possible.
What 'Authentic' Actually Means
It means the recipes come from a specific person and a specific place. It means the ingredients are the same as the ones she used — imported San Marzano tomatoes, 00 flour, Parmigiano-Reggiano aged at least 24 months. It means the technique hasn't been simplified or Americanized. It means the dish is trying to taste like something that was already perfect before it arrived here.
Come taste what she made.
1847 E 6th Street, Austin TX 78702 • Tue–Thu 5–10PM • Fri–Sat 5–11PM • Sun 5–9PM