Cafe Martorano

• 3700 W. Flamingo Road, Las Vegas, 89103 (Directions)
• Inside the Rio
• 702-777-7777
• 702-777-7740
• Web site: http://www.cafemartorano.com/index.html
• E-mail: [email protected]

The cuisine, from south Philly, by way of Ft. Lauderdale, is the Godfather of all things Italian: terrific homemade meatballs, baked clams, rigatoni with a pork-rich Sunday gravy and portions large enough to make Tony Soprano cry "uncle." Chef Steve Martorano is well grounded in classic Italian-American cuisine, as he wrote in a July 2012 guest column in the Las Vegas Weekly: "My mom made a pot of gravy on Sundays with pigs’ feet, pigs’ skin, ribs, sausage, braciole and especially meatballs. Some people baked their meatballs, some threw them right into the pot, but we fried ours first. Before the meatballs went into the pot, we’d tear through a dozen of them. I’d make a gravy sandwich: sliced bread, gravy, grated cheese -- simplicity is always best."
Cafe Martorano is listed in the book “Eating Las Vegas 2013: The 50 Essential Restaurants.”