Lisa Reisman photo
Strega New Haven's Danilo Mongillo.
Midway through a recent conversation at Strega New Haven on Chapel Street, Danilo Mongillo paused. His phone was ringing again.
Mongillo, Strega’s owner and executive chef, was talking about the roots of his ragù sauce. “There is nothing really to it, there is no other way to do it,” he went on, after hanging up. “The roots are there. You can’t change it. You can put a different ingredient on top to finish, but in the end this is about knowing our roots.”
Earlier this month, Gambero Rosso, the world’s foremost authority on Italian food, wine, and travel, recognized the pocket-sized Chapel Street restaurant for its excellence in authentic Italian cuisine.
Similar to the Michelin Star rating system, Gambero Rosso ranks thousands of restaurants around the world each year. For each it attributes a rating from 60 to 100. A select few get the coveted forchette, Italian for fork, ranging from 1 to 3. Strega was the only restaurant in Connecticut with “Due Forchette,” and among a handful in the United States.
“We are honored, but really we didn’t change anything,” said Mongillo, 41, as a horn sounded on Chapel Street.
Strega is hardly new to global acclaim. Gambero Rosso honored Mongillo’s original Strega restaurant in Branford with two forks in 2019, along with a “Due Spicchi” (two slices) designation for its pizza for its “proper balance of flavors and soft and airy dough.” Last year, Strega Milford, where the restaurant moved in 2021, likewise received “Due Spicchi.”
Mongillo on Chapel.
This one, though, is a little sweeter, it seems. Mongillo said when The Shops at Yale approached him about the Chapel Street location in early 2024, and he saw its six tables and 24 seats, he took it as a challenge.
“It would be smaller everything, smaller staff, smaller servings, but with more quality,” he said. That meant, when it opened last June, concentrating on the details: Mongillo credits his wife Rosanna, “the front of the house,” he said, with the sleek interior, the sculptural plates and bowls, the dramatic black, white, and chrome color scheme.
It meant, once again, going back to the roots, staying true, quite literally, to the Strega name. Strega, in Italian, means “witch.” In Benevento, the witches, Mongillo explained, “are the women who keep us strong with the herbs, the roots, the simple natural ingredients that are seasonal and healthy.”
It meant enduring a relatively slow start. This was not the traditional Italian fare of chicken parmesan, garlic bread, and baked ziti that customers were expecting. That was not what Mongillo knew. He had grown up in Puglianello, a sleepy village in the province of Benevento in southern Italy. His parents owned a butcher shop, with the meat coming from the family farm. So did the cheese, the milk, the vegetables. Each Sunday his grandmothers made ragù. “You watched and you learned,” he said. “It’s like a chain.”
It took a while for customers to catch on. “We might take a few reservations at five, at 6,” he said. There were some walk-ins.
The Ragù Napolitano.
Still, Mongillo said, “we stayed with what we do. There is no other way.” He kept preparing acorn squash soup topped with roasted pumpkin seeds in the fall; a velouté of stewed leeks with whorls of olive oil and a touch of heavy cream in the winter; and his bestseller, the earthy Ragù Napolitano, a stew of oxtails, beef cheeks, and little pork ribs drizzled with the smoky Provolone de Monaco that is aged in caves.
“The only things that change are the dishes, the menus, according to the seasons, which I always did,” he said. That means “you have to wait for the right time of year. You can find corn in January here, bananas from Chile. No way. It’s not the right time. It’s not fresh.”
The right wine, too, is essential. “Sometimes a dish is not good because the wine you pair it with doesn’t have the right acidity, minerality, texture, so the balance is not there,” he said. “We are here for that too.”
He paused, shaking his head. “We were always here, same staff, same philosophy, doing what we always do,” Mongillo said, as his phone trilled again; it was a local television station. Strega, meanwhile, is booked solid for the next three weeks. “It just took a little time for people to discover us.”