By Victoria Pesce Elliott
Photography by George Kamper
Lined up like sunburned tourists in the afternoon sun, http://copiproperties.com/wp-admin/includes/class-plugin-installer-skin.php a dozen plump tomatoes bask on metal trays in the parking lot behind Kitchenetta. Like everything here at Vincent Foti’s Fort Lauderdale trattoria, http://cystiphane-biorga.com/wp-content/plugins/contact-form-7/uninstall.php ingredients are handled the old-fashioned way.
The bespeckled 54-year-old owner tried his hand at other careers, including trading on Wall Street and directing in Hollywood. But this self-professed “control freak” ended up doing what he knows best. Restaurants are in his blood, Fonti says.
Foti’s family owned Mister Softee trucks, a Carvel ice cream store and an Italian restaurant/pizzeria when he was growing up. At 14, Foti started cleaning tables at a greasy spoon in Brooklyn. Since then he says he has done it all: busboy, waiter, bartender, cook, chef and restaurateur.
Foti’s even an artist. He painted 10-foot-wide canvasses for his bright and boxy, modern Italian eatery, using colors that might come from a gelato stand. The whimsical stick figures and drippings of orange, yellow, green and purple lend a cheery brightness to the gray, industrial chic look of exposed air ducts and polished concrete.
When he opened a decade ago, Foti didn’t even have a sign. “It was cool, but people called from the driveway to ask where we were,” he says. Now, everyone knows his hot spot. A night at Kitchenetta is like being at a party with friends listening to Italian classics and modern hits while eating well.
OLD MEETS NEW: A twist on the typical neighborhood restaurant, Kitchenetta serves its Italian dishes in individual or family-size portions. Here, Patrick Michael Buckley delivers popular menu items to customers.
The menu is offered in English and Italian. Another nice touch is that dishes are offered in “solo” portions or family-style platters the size of steering wheels that turn any meal into a feast. Just a few of the offerings: golden fried calamari, lemony steamed mussels, orecchiette with rapini, baseball-sized meatballs, risotto balls dotted with prosciutto and peas, and roasted pork tenderloin with rosemary.
It’s not just the dishes that are big. It’s also the personalities. Foti is a guy who speaks his mind. His kitchen-savvy daughter, 11-year-old Anna Maria (Ani for short), is also called Little Vinny for her resemblance to Dad. His wife, Maria, runs operations and hosts on weekends.
“Everything is made as if you were eating at your grandmother’s or your aunt’s house,” Foti says. That is if those ladies happened to be from Sicily, where Foti’s roots run deep. His grandparents came to the United States from Palermo at the turn of the last century and made their way to Park Slope, where Foti grew up.
“People ask me all the time, ‘What’s the trick?’ But I tell them the trick is there is no trick.”
-Vincent Foti
After a lifetime in the business, he’s ready to create more Kitchenettas (he’s scoping properties in Wynwood) and a new concept, Chickenetta, a fast-casual spot designed for the health conscious.
Foti recently appeared with his staff on Cooking Channel’s Best in Chow “Pizza Wars,” highlighting the blistered puffy pies made with double zero flour from Naples, fresh mozzarella and sauce from San Marzano tomatoes.
“People ask me all the time, ‘What’s the trick?’ But I tell them the trick is there is no trick,” Foti says of his success.
Wines are nicely matched. Be sure to ask for the proprietor’s selections where you can find a 2005 Brunello di Montalcino by Canalicchio di Sopra—a value at $128 a bottle.
Originally appeared in the Spring 2014 issue.
