Trattoria 'A Vucchella: Hidden Italian Gem in Downtown Bridgeport

Trattoria A’Vucchella is the epitome of a hidden gem. Open for a tick over a decade, directly across the street from The Bijou Theater in Downtown Bridgeport, it might be one of the city’s best kept secrets if you’re not a local, and if you didn’t somehow discover it naturally.

“It’s a tough location, but we have a loyal following,” says co-owner Pasquale De Martino. “They all found us organically, and once they find us, they come back and from all over. I love the community here.”

“People come for a cultural experience,” Martino says. Some of his loyal regulars include actor John Ratzenberger and Yankees GM Brian Cashman.

Martino also takes guests of the restaurant and others on tours of Italy to experience culture and food.

As expected, Italian wines are on display at Trattoria ‘A Vucchella. Martino is sure he has one of the bigger selections of Italian wine in Connecticut and will go out of his way to educate you about each bottle he carries.

Martino—who opened the restaurant back in 2014 with Jennifer Galletti and Thomas Bepko—was formerly the owner of a limoncello factory for 10 years in his birthplace of Sorrento, Italy before selling it and eventually getting into the villa renting business in Italy with Galletti.

Martino wound up in Bridgeport, he says, both with humor and in all seriousness, because he “was chasing a woman (Galletti), who’s the mother of my son.”

No chicken or veal parm, but eggplant parm is popular here. Thin slices of fried eggplant in a rich tomato sauce, baked with mozzarella and parmesan cheeses.

Single serving of lasagna with homemade noodles, béchamel, and a classic Bolognese.

His original idea for a restaurant? A quick service pasta bar. But he mentioned with an idea like that, you require volume in the form of foot traffic. Instead, Martino wanted something more authentic that was less chicken parm and more Milanese and Marsala, more carbonara and all’amatrician and not baked ziti—although he’d reluctantly put ziti and meatballs on the menu to please “that” crowd.

Why Martino chose Bridgeport, specifically in the former French bistro space that was home to Epernay, is simply because he liked the Bijou Square area.

“I love the idea to be in a city,” he says. “I like the street, it kind of reminds me of Europe, and I like that it’s an industrial city. The Bijou across the street has been open since 1909.”

As for the restaurant’s name, Trattoria ‘A Vuchella, entering that into your translator app won’t provide any results.

“It means ‘of the mouth,’” Martino says. “Vuchella in Neapolitan is the title of a song, A Sweet Mouth. You do a lot with your mouth; kiss, sing, talk, and you eat.”

What Martino wanted out of opening Trattoria ‘A Vucchella was something “easy, simple, and authentic.” Think along the lines of a braised, slow cooked pork shank that falls apart when you run your fork over it, honeycomb beef tripe in a spicy tomato sauce, and homemade pastas, including some pasta dishes you may not see very often.

Ziti Genovese

Braised pork shank, natural juices, carrots/onion/celery, mashed potatoes

“Ziti Genovese!” Martino says with excitement. “Bolognese you can buy, this you usually cannot. No one really does it. It’s three, no four, ingredients. Onion, beef, salt, and wine. It’s the Sunday ragu of Naples.”

And of course, being Neapolitan, that means there’s pizza, too, done traditionally in a brick, strictly wood burning oven.

Desserts are homemade, as is the limoncello, as one might expect from a guy who once owned a limoncello factory.

Mojito semifreddo, made to be refreshing, just like the cocktail.

“The dough is just water, Caputo 00 flour (the blue bag), and we mix the flour with some water so it attacks the protein of the flour so it doesn’t give you digestive problems, and we let that sit for 1-2 hours,” Martino explains. “After that, yeast, salt, and more water. The dough rests for 18 hours, then we cut balls and rest it for another six hours, so 24 hours total. It’s very light. Ninety seconds in the brick oven, how it’s supposed to be. All wood.”

Although Trattoria ‘A Vucchella’s website’s wording calls Martino a chef, he’ll flat out tell you that he’s “a cook, not a chef,” Martino certainly has visions of forwarding culinary education in the state if it’s possible.

“I come from a family of chefs, my brother, my uncle,” Martino says. “In a family of four kids, you learn. It’s always been a dream to have some kind of culinary institute in Connecticut. We should have an institution to teach young people how to cook.”

Spoken like a chef.

272 Fairfield Avenue, Bridgeport
203.383.2837, avucchella.com