Dinner at Grandma's The Restaurant Where Nonnas Rule

(Italian opera music) - [Narrator] We all crave our
grandmother's cooking, right? Well, what if there were a
place that you could go anytime and get that home-cooked meal
from anywhere in the world? That place exists in Staten Island, just behind that scaffolding
right over there. (Dramatic operatic music) Meet Jo. He's Italian by way of Brooklyn. - My name is Jody Scaravella,
and I own Enoteca Maria.

We don't employ chefs;
we employ grandmothers. - [Narrator] When Joe opened
the restaurant in 2006, he noticed something. - Every culture was
coming to the restaurant to celebrate these Italian grandmothers, so I thought to myself,
How nice would it be if we celebrated everybody's culture? - [Narrator] And so, Nonnas
of the World was born. (Grandmas talking) - [Jody] There are probably somewhere between 30 and 40 grandmothers
from different countries.

- My name is Habiba. I'm from Algeria. - My name is Lubof, and I
am from Moscow, Russia. - I come from Sri Lanka.

- Bulgaria. - Dublin, Ireland. - From Armenia. - Buenos Aires, Argentina.

- [Narrator] Each night, there
are two grandmothers cooking. One is always Italian, the
other, from somewhere else. - [Jody] When they're
in the kitchen cooking, it's a completely different energy. It's their day to shine;
it's their day to show what their cultural cuisine is all about.

You know, it sounds kind of corny, but they do cook with love. - [Narrator] And that
feeling for Jo is about more than the restaurant. - When I opened the Enoteca,
I was really grief-stricken. My mom and my sister had passed.

(Grandmother chatters) - It was comforting to
have these grandmothers in the kitchen cooking and, you know,
they would pinch my cheek and say, "You want to try this?" And at that point, I realized
that what we were doing was much bigger than I
thought it was going to be. (Glasses clinking) When you walk through the
restaurant, if you listen, every table that you pass by, they're talking about their mothers or they're talking about
their grandmothers. It kind of evokes a trip down memory lane. (Upbeat music) (background chatter) (chime).