Grandmothers’ Ragú Transported From Puglianello

“This is the story of the ragú,” Danilo Mongillo said, sliding a small bowl of sauce from the refrigerator and setting it on the counter of the newly opened Strega New Haven on Chapel Street, ​“and it’s a slow story.” 

The story began with a mix of pork and beef.

“Every piece of meat has a different timing,” the 40-year-old chef said. ​“So oxtails first, beef cheek after, and at the end the little pork ribs because it’s more delicate than beef.”

Mongillo is owner and, with Raffaele D’Addio, chef at Strega, an intimate six-table, 24-seat space that opened on Chapel Street next to Claire’s in early June. The mission, which it shares with its sister location in Milford: ​“to transport diners to the Italy we know and love,” its website reads. ​“We are not just opening another Italian restaurant,” Mongillo said. ​“We are chefs from Italy that opened a restaurant in Connecticut.”

When the Independent visited him in the kitchen, he was making Ragú Napolitano.

As he cooked, he recalled Sundays in his native Puglianello, a sleepy village in the province of Benevento, when his grandmothers would make ragú. His parents owned a butcher shop with the meat coming from his family farm. ​“The Sunday lunch, it’s the most important meal of the week for us, and they start early, and then it’s 12 or 1 in the afternoon and you smell this ragú all around the house,” he said, as he fired up the commercial range. 

With that, he spooned garlic oil and basil into a cooking pan, then added fresh rigatoni and Sicilian sea salt to a pot of boiling water. The salt, he said, ​“is from the Mediterranean and full of minerals.”

Mongillo has no formal training as a chef. When his parents worked late, he cooked dinner for his younger brothers. ​“Pasta, broth, and eggs, a little parmigiana,” he said. ​“Everyone cooked. You watched and you learned. It’s like a chain.” 

Following three years of service in Afghanistan with the Italian army, he took a position as a police officer in the Ministry of Agriculture investigating violations against Italy’s strict regional product controls on food, wine, and cheese. It was a steady job, but he missed his wife Rosanna, a Sicilian native; she was studying graphic design at Southern Connecticut State University. 

In 2014, he took a year off in New Haven. There, ​“I missed my food,” he said, as he ladled the sauce into the pan, a rich aroma wafting through the kitchen. 

Soon after, he opened a restaurant in Branford, naming it Strega for witch.

“For us, the witch is nothing else but the women who take care of the population with herbs, roots, the simple and natural ingredients that are seasonal and healthy, that keep us strong and with energy,” he said.

There were a few early bumps. What Strega was offering wasn’t the Italian cuisine of chicken parmesan, garlic bread, and spaghetti with meatballs its customers were expecting. ​“People were asking for things that were here already,” Mongillo said. ​“We wanted to introduce them to something else.” 

That continued with a move to Milford in June 2021 and, along the way, recognition from Gamboro Rossi, the world’s foremost authority on Italian food, wine, and travel, for excellence in authentic Italian cuisine.

Amid the size constraints of Strega New Haven, Mongillo has reduced his philosophy to its essence.

“I’m trying to go smaller, smaller staff, smaller servings, but with more quality,” he said, transferring the pasta into the sauce pan and tossing them together before turning the fire off. 

At that moment his wife Rosanna appeared in the kitchen. ​“I do everything,” she said with a smile. ​“Server, everything.” Mongillo nodded. 

“Even these plates are smaller, but better,” he said, sliding one with elaborate grooves from a shelf.

He plated the dish and drizzled Provolone del Monaco and basil oil with micro greens on top. ​“This is beautiful, red, rich, very rich,” the chef said with an air of satisfaction.

True to Mongillo’s recommendation to pair a Valpolicella with the Ragú Napolitano, this correspondent found the lightness of the wine in agreement with the meaty symphony of flavors. But it was the ragú itself that was the highlight, its distinctive taste evoking the sense of a boisterous family enjoying a Sunday lunch around a rough-hewn table, a temperate breeze drifting through the open windows.

In addition to its regular menu, Strega New Haven offers a five-course tasting menu for $100 with an optional wine pairing for $50. Reservations are encouraged.