T&J Villaggio Trattoria: Good food, familiar faces

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By Jananne Abel

Many times when I go out to dinner in Port Chester or Rye Brook, I take a look around the restaurant and I don’t see anyone I know. Sometimes I’ll know a few people. But when I go to T&J Villaggio Trattoria at 223-225 Westchester Ave., I always see many familiar faces. Some I know well and they call me by name; others I just recognize and know I’ve seen around town.

T&J’s central location, warm hospitality, good service, reliably good food at reasonable prices and, yes, the camaraderie people feel when they go in and are greeted by other local residents keep people going back.

Unless they’re relative newcomers, most people in town have heard of or have been to this popular local restaurant. I met one 83-year-old Port Chester resident at T&J this week who said he’d been going there since 1946 when it was the Village Inn and half the size. I knew the Village Inn had been at this location for many years, but it was the first time I’d heard it was once half the size.

Besides seeing people you know having dinner or a drink at the bar, T&J hosts the local Rotary Club, Kiwanis Club and Veterans of Foreign Wars.

If you haven’t been to T&J Villaggio Trattoria, the latest incarnation of this longtime Port Chester restaurant and banquet hall, you’ve surely been next door to T&J Pizza & Pasta. After having successfully run T&J Pizza & Pasta for more than a decade, on Jan. 15, 2003 the Vitiello and Ruggiero families cornered the restaurant market along this stretch of Westchester Avenue by taking ownership of their second restaurant and renaming it T&J Villaggio Trattoria, making way for the next generation.

John Ruggiero, 35, of the Fleetwood section of Mt. Vernon, John Muscatella, 45, and Ray Sassano, 42, both of Hawthorne, now own and manage both restaurants. Ruggiero is the son of Ray and Filomena Ruggiero of the Bronx who after a time joined the original T&J owners Grace and Jerry Vitiello of Hawthorne in their venture. Muscatella and Sassano are the Vitiellos’ sons-in-law.

Muscatella does the paperwork and pretty much runs T&J Villaggio while Ruggiero and Sassano share operation of T&J Pizza & Pasta which is open seven days a week. Villaggio is only open six days. Ruggiero and Sassano also pitch in when needed on weekends at Villaggio. While Sassano is usually at the pizzeria, Ruggiero more regularly splits his time between the two.

“There aren’t too many people who own two restaurants on the same street,” admitted Muscatella back in 2004. However, he said, this way “we compete with ourselves; we corner the market rather than to have a different restaurant come in here.”

“The concept still works,” Muscatella, a very likeable guy, said this week. “We kind of work off each other. It’s two different atmospheres. Here it is relaxed and you can spend 2-3 hours and next door they have more volume.”

T&J Villaggio is strictly for sit-down meals, offering a fine dining experience while the pizzeria is more informal and caters to delivery and takeout. It also has a bar and catering facility while the pizzeria does not. Even in its two dining rooms, T&J Villaggio is spacious and handles large parties without a problem. It seats 90 in the main dining room and 40 in the bar area. The banquet hall—located behind the bar area and down a few steps—can accommodate 150 for private parties with a dance floor.

There are no regrets about taking over the Village Inn from Sam Terenzi, James Girardi and Paul Zumbo seven years ago, said Muscatella. Zumbo, a lifelong Port Chester resident who started cooking at Marianacci’s restaurant in Port Chester, is still the head chef.

“One of the main focuses is catering,” said Muscatella. “We’re one of the only banquet halls around.”

Both eateries serve Italian specialties, but only a few dishes overlap. “There are similar dishes, but the chefs do them two different ways,” said Muscatella.

Although Ruggiero, Muscatella and Sassano are sharing ownership and management of the two restaurants, their parents and in-laws who started the T&J tradition, now in their 60s, are still involved, although to a lesser extent than they used to be.

Grace Vitiello, known for her hospitality, was circulating among the customers on the recent Sunday night we visited, making them feel at home as she did for years at T&J Pizza & Pasta. She and Filomena Ruggiero still make the Italian cheesecake, amaretto cake, gnocchi and special order lobster and spinach ravioli. “They roll it in the kitchen and put everything together,” said Muscatella.

And Ray Ruggiero still works at the pizzeria occasionally. However, Grace’s husband Jerry, who represents the J in T&J, is now retired. The T stands for Tony, one of Grace’s brothers, who stepped down in 1995-6, said Muscatella.

He said of the old guard: “We have to be here. They really want to be here.”

Muscatella’s father, also John, handles the banquets and catering, having worked at Alex and Henry’s and Villa Barone in the Bronx. “He came one day and never left,” said his son.

Since the three partners all have kids now and each works 15-hour days, their wives maintain order at home rather than helping out in the restaurants. Muscatella and his wife Maria have three girls who are 16, 13 and 9.

Even the employees who aren’t family are treated as such, said Ruggiero, Besides the chef, there are several longtime staff members at T&J Villaggio, including head waiter Pasquale Ciccone, who has been around since T&J Villaggio opened, as well as waitresses Veronica Grgraf and Mary Lazzaro of Port Chester. The warmth of family emanates from T&J Villaggio where everyone makes you feel at home.

Service is friendly and efficient but not formal, food is first class and nicely presented, and portions are huge.

Mother’s Day

For Mother’s Day on Sunday, May 10, T&J is offering a price-fixed dinner in the banquet room at 2:00 p.m. For $34.95 you will get five courses: antipasto, salad, two choices of pasta, four choices of entrée, dessert and coffee. The price also includes beer, wine and soda. It does not include tax or gratuity. The menu choices were not set as of press time, but you can ask when you call for reservations. For this special meal, you must have a minimum of eight people at a table, and a children’s menu is available.

A competitive market

T&J is trying to weather the economic downturn the same as other restaurants. “It’s a tough market and you have to be competitive at the same time,” said Muscatella. “You can’t pass the costs back to the customer at this time. You are keeping prices the same if not lowering them while costs go up. Most people eat out once or twice a week, not three or four times. You dig in and hope things will get better.”

Muscatella has noticed a normal spring surge of business with more people getting out of the house and more parties being booked. However, he said, “business takes longer to go up than it does to go down.”

“Port Chester has a lot of restaurants and it is very competitive,” concluded Muscatella. “You have to keep your service and product up to standards because people in Port Chester have a lot to choose from.”

Simply elegant décor

The décor at T&J is simply elegant with Italian touches. An effort has been made to blend the décor of the two dining rooms to make them look like one with a bar in between. Carpeting is brown in the two dining rooms with earth tone tile in front of the bar. Walls are painted beige with a sponge-painted look in the dining room off the bar and a hand-painted grape vine design adding interest in the main dining room. Tables are set with sandalwood-colored cloths topped by lighter champagne ones. They are decorated with fancy bottles of olive oil. Chairs have wooden backs and deep beige cushions.

Decorative wooden window frames, rectangular wrought iron pieces and framed photographs of Italy hang on the walls. Pretty fixtures hang from the ceiling—bulbs made to look like candles surrounded by etched glass. In the center of the main dining room a table holds wine bottles, a large ceramic chef holding a wine bottle and two smaller ceramic chefs. One wall is white brick decorated with wooden “Caffe Latte” and “Capuccino” signs and a small blackboard listing the desserts.

Mirrors create an open atmosphere in the bar and adjacent dining room where there’s a TV over the bar and in each corner of the room. Pretty tall wooden bar stools that look like chairs line the long bar which has a greenish marbleized look and soft black padding around the edges. Curtains at the front windows are done in a floral design.

Dinner for three

Usually meals at T&J Villaggio Trattoria start with brushetta—crunchy garlic bread topped with chopped tomato, onion and olive oil—as well as slices of argentino reggionito cheese (similar to parmesan) and a basket of delicious Terranova and Italian seeded bread. However, on a recent Sunday night visit, there was no brushetta.

I opted for the Vongole Casino ($9.95) for appetizer, billed as a chef’s specialty, which brought eight clams in the shell topped with a bread crumb mixture and pieces of bacon. These are moist and yummy and were enough to satisfy our party of three.

To go with our meal, we selected the Chianti Classico 2007, a dry red which was tasty, had a clean finish and at $25 didn’t break the bank.

Since the menu is a la carte, salads don’t come with the meals, so our waiter, Pasquale Ciccone, told us he’d fix us up. He served a family style mixed green salad with iceberg, arugula and romaine lettuce, cherry tomatoes, onions, roasted red pepper and a few large green olives in a wonderfully unobtrusive oil and vinegar blend with gorgonzola cheese on the side ($5.95 per person).

We often have favorite dishes at certain restaurants and at T&J Villaggio, mine is the Bistecca Gorgonzola ($24.95), a large shell steak cooked medium rare to order topped with a generous portion of gorgonzola cream sauce. Perhaps there was too much sauce on this occasion because it flowed into the perfectly cooked and slightly buttery green beans. However, that took nothing away from this spectacular dish which I had left over a few nights later and enjoyed just as much.

We also chose the Short Ribs over Rigatoni ($23.95) which was on the list of weekend specials but Muscatella later told me is a favorite and will be added to the regular menu. The meat is tender, has no bone in it and is cooked in a savory brown vegetable sauce made with chopped carrots and celery. Once again we had leftovers for another meal.

The third person in our party had the Branzino di Chilean ($21.95) (Chilean sea bass with fava beans and sun-dried tomatoes in a brown sauce with a touch of vodka) which he reported to have a flavorful exterior and a soft and delicious center.

All of the entrées came with green beans.

For dessert, a slice of homemade amaretto cake ($6.95) decorated with whipped cream and chocolate sauce was cakey and had only a slight taste of amaretto. The homemade cannoli ($5.95), also topped with whipped cream and chocolate sauce, was more of a hit with its creamy filling and crunchy shell.

A glass of beer and a cappuccino ($5.95) completed our check which totaled $154.10.

Menus and specials

Besides its regular menu and list of 8-9 specials, which change every weekend, T&J Villaggio has a price-fixed menu Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights where you get a choice of appetizer, salad, entrée, coffee and dessert for $20.95. The short ribs over rigatoni will soon be added to the list of entrées, and some of the other entrées (now Chicken Balsamico, Beef Brasciola over Gnocchi, Penne Vodka, Stuffed Filet of Sole, Pork Chop Paisano and Tortellini Salsiccie) will also be changed.

Because of current and coming competition, menus will be changing within the next couple of weeks to add more comfort foods such as burgers, turkey burgers, chicken wings, panini and wraps to the bar menu.

The new dinner menu, which will be more limited than the current one which has 10 antipasti ($6.95 for stuffed artichokes to $10.95 for Calamari Scarpariello), six salads ($5.95 for mixed greens in homemade Italian dressing to $10.95 for mixed greens, mixed fruits, cranberry, oil and vinegar), nine pasta dishes ($14.95 for linguine with clam sauce to $22.95 for Linguine Pescatore with mussels, clams, shrimp and scallops in a marinara sauce over linguine), 14 meat dishes (chicken, veal, steak and pork chops ranging from Pollo Di Napoli at $17.95 to Bistecca Gabriella with sun-dried tomatoes in a roasted garlic sauce at $24.95) and seven seafood dishes (shrimp in a scampi sauce over rice at $19.95 to Zuppa de Pesce at $31.95), will also offer family style dining. Muscatella said you’ll still always be able to get the traditional Southern Italian favorite dishes people want.

For lunch, the dinner menu is available as well as 4-5 specials such as Pollo Madeira (chicken with mushrooms) at $12.95 and Red Snapper at $13.95. Both are served with vegetables.

Desserts (most $6.95) include homemade Italian cheesecake, tira misu, amaretto cake and cannoli ($5.95) plus cakes such as apple crumb, chocolate mousse and raspberry linzer that are purchased from Hudson Valley Baking Company in Port Chester, Longford’s ice cream made in Port Chester and sorbet. Special occasion cakes come from Neri’s Bakery in Port Chester.

The wine list includes house wines by the glass for $6 plus Italian reds and whites and domestic reds and whites priced from $19 to $89 with several in the $20-30 range.

Special events

Besides being rented out for special occasions and for political caucuses, T&J’s banquet hall is the site of many special events. This year there were a number of fundraisers including two poker events for charity, the annual Harrison High School cheerleader fundraiser with a comedian and awards dinners for Port Chester, Rye, Harrison and Greenwich high schools. In addition, the restaurant hosts its own events such as a venison dinner “for 185 carnivores” every January, a dinner and comedy show, and this year the band Reunion played for a pre-Valentine’s Day dinner dance. Reunion will be returning in June for another such event.

Hours, parking, etc.

T&J Villaggio Trattoria is open for lunch and dinner Tuesday through Thursday from 12 noon to 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday from noon to 11 p.m. and Sunday from 2 to 9 p.m.

Parking in on the street or in the municipal parking lot just up Westchester Avenue behind the former Irv’s Stationery or in the other municipal lot off Grove Street behind the block of stores on the other side of Westchester Avenue.

This is part of the online edition of Rye Brook Westmore News.

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