One chef, one server and one cat run the most eccentric restaurant in Wilmington’s Little Italy

The Vibe Check: Luigi Vitrone’s Pastabilities
Concept: Authentic Italian dishes served in a homey environment where everybody knows your name
Average entrée price: $26.40, ranging from $25 to $37
Kid’s Menu? No, but they can make small portions for kids
Alcohol? Yes
Vegetarian-Friendly: Yes
Gluten-Friendly: Yes, mention it when you make a reservation
Live music? No
Hours: Wed.-Thurs. 5:30-8:30 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 5:15-9 p.m., Sun.-Tues. closed
Address: 415 N Lincoln St, Wilmington, DE 19805
Website: https://ljvpastabilities.com/

It doesn’t take long after entering Lugi Vitrone’s Pastabilities in Wilmington’s Little Italy to meet the chef. Diners enter through the kitchen, where Vitrone, now in his 70s, pounds veal with gusto or carefully folds herbs and ricotta into homemade ravioli. 

Diners greet Vitrone, then continue to the dining room, where they’re met by the sole server, Doris Miller, and the part-time security guard, part-time prima donna, Boogers the black cat (who recently celebrated his6th birthday in a kitty tuxedo and party hat). 

The walls are barely visible behind all the decor: a custom-made Pastabilities clock, newspaper clippings of past glories, a painting of Vitrone at the stove and a framed immigration document from when his parents arrived in the United States as teenagers. 

There are knick-knacks abound, like a statue of a mustachioed man holding a bottle of merlot. The eclectic environment is fitting for Vitrone, who used to own an antique store.

It’s a homey restaurant, to say the least (and not only because Vitrone lives upstairs). There are only seven tables in the joint, and most regulars have known the crew for years. As Miller takes orders and mixes drinks, they’ll share photos of grandkids or gossip about exes with her.

In such an intimate environment, it’s impossible even for a newcomer to avoid joining in the conversation at some point. In fact, when one dining party gets up to leave, they’ll probably say goodbye to every person in the restaurant, not just the cat.

Fieri’s fist bump

While Pastabilities is a secret most regulars don’t want to get out, the restaurant has had its fair share of national attention. Vitrone has a photograph of himself with celebrity chef Guy Fieri to prove it. 

Fieri visited the restaurant for a 2019 episode of “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.” Regulars struggled to find a reservation as Fieri fanatics packed the restaurant for six months, Miller said.

“(Fieri) said, ‘You’re going to get a humongous amount of people from Minnesota,’” Vitrone recalled. “Sure enough, I think three or four days after it was on the TV, (a diner asked,) ‘Can you recommend a hotel?’ … And I say, ‘Well, where are you from?’ ‘Minnesota.’ I don’t know what it was. Nobody ever explained it to me.”

The restaurant still gets plenty of out-of-state diners, many of whom make a habit of trying Fieri’s favorites while traveling. 

Miller proudly added that Fieri gave Vitrone a “double fist bump” after tasting his arancini rice balls. 

It’s not hard to see why. The crispy outer shell of breading breaks to reveal a core of creamy rice, peas and provolone — a taste that’s elevated by the marinara, which has a bright, sweet flavor. 

One arancini is the size of a navel orange. That’s not the only ginormous item on the menu.

“Look at the size of that meatball!” one diner happily exclaimed during a recent visit.

Bang for your buck and authenticity were the qualities Vitrone had in mind when he opened the restaurant. 

‘A message from the big man upstairs’

Before opening Pastabilities in 1988, Vitrone owned and operated Bon Vivant, a French and Italian restaurant in Brooklyn, where he was raised. 

Vitrone described his decision to move to Delaware like he was a superhero being recruited for Marvel’s Avengers — except his recruiter was then-New York Gov. Mario Cuomo. They knew each other through their fathers, who were “paisanos,” Vitrone said.

“(Mario Cuomo) used to come to my restaurant in New York all the time. And he’s the one who says, ‘It’s a place called Delaware.’ I thought it was a river,” Vitrone said. “He says, ‘I think a person like you could maybe come up with some different ideas down there. … All they want to do is sell crab cakes.’”

Of course, Vitrone quickly realized that was an exaggeration, but he made the move anyway. 

Vitrone first planned on opening Pastabilities in a former butcher shop in historic New Castle. 

Vitrone grew up in his family’s butcher shop, so he’d assumed the building’s availability was “a message from the big man upstairs.” That is, until a New Castle building inspector asked to meet with him. 

There was no problem with the building. The inspector, who also grew up in New York, wanted to caution Vitrone that the town was small and “clannish,” and residents might not be entirely welcoming toward “an Italian American driving a nice car, wearing nice clothes,” Vitrone said. 

Vitrone sold the building two weeks later, setting his sights on Wilmington’s Little Italy neighborhood instead.

The building where Pastabilities is today turned out to be an even more fateful purchase than the building Vitrone had considered in New Castle. Not only was it a former butcher shop, but the butcher’s name had been Luigi.

Revitalizing Little Italy

Vitrone felt instantly at home in Little Italy. 

Some of his most supportive customers were first-generation immigrants in their 80s and 90s who, upon their arrival decades prior, used the nearby West End Neighborhood House as a safe haven. The community center was founded in 1883 with the mission of helping recent Italian, German and Irish immigrants with Americanization, literacy, housing and employment, though today, its mission is to help all Delawareans become self-sufficient.

Vitrone fell so in love with Little Italy that in 1996, he and a group of fellow business owners founded the Little Italy Neighborhood Association with the mission of improving the quality of life of its residents.

Over the years, Vitrone said the association secured federal grant funding to redo the community’s streetscaping, add light fixtures and vegetation and build the steel, green archway that welcomes visitors to Little Italy in both English and Italian. 

The association also focused its efforts on tourism. 

For example, Vitrone said he convinced the CEO of The Philadelphia Coca-Cola Bottling Company to add the Little Italy Neighborhood Association’s logo to the side of over 50 delivery trucks in the early 2000s. 

Vitrone said the publicity stunt caught the attention of then-Wilmington Mayor James Baker while he was on a trip to Philadelphia, who called him from his car, astounded. 

The neighborhood association’s efforts continued with Taste of Little Italy in 2003, a weeklong event focused on attracting hungry mouths to restaurants by offering specials.

Twenty-three years later, the nonprofit organization West Side Grows Together is building on the tradition with its “Taste of the West Side” event on Nov. 7, which Luigi Vitrone’s Pastabilities will participate in. 

“(The West Side of Wilmington)’s very diverse. You can tell by the food offerings. We have Egyptian. We have Thai. We have Latinx. We have traditional soul food, traditional American fare,” said Alethea Smith-Tucker, the nonprofit’s economic development manager. 

The event is a way to attract spending to local businesses in a historically “under-resourced” community during tough economic times, she added.

Vitrone hopes other neighborhoods on the West Side of Wilmington can tap into tourism in the same way Little Italy has. 

“Tourism is a natural resource,” he said. Then, miming mining with a pickaxe, he exclaimed, “Oh my God! We’ve found oil.”