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Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Nonnas is based on a real restaurant, but it is not a documentary. The 2025 Netflix film takes inspiration from Jody Scaravella’s Enoteca Maria on Staten Island, where grandmothers cook recipes rooted in their regions and family histories, then reshapes that premise into a fictional story about grief, memory, and chosen family.
Yes—but only in broad outline. Netflix’s Nonnas is a fictionalized 2025 comedy-drama inspired by Jody (Joe) Scaravella, the real founder of Enoteca Maria, a Staten Island restaurant where grandmothers cook regional and international dishes. The restaurant, the founder’s grief-driven idea, and the concept of nonnas preserving family food traditions are real. The film’s character relationships, chronology, conflicts, romance, and individual biographies should be treated as screenplay inventions unless independently confirmed.
Directed by Stephen Chbosky and written by Liz Maccie, Nonnas stars Vince Vaughn as Joe Scaravella, with Susan Sarandon, Lorraine Bracco, Brenda Vaccaro, and Talia Shire as four of the grandmothers who become the restaurant’s chefs. It premiered on Netflix on May 9, 2025, and is classified as a PG comedy-drama based on real life.
What is Nonnas about?
After losing his mother and grandmother, Joe turns his grief into an ambitious food project. Using his mother’s insurance money and the family recipes he has inherited, he risks opening an Italian restaurant on Staten Island. Instead of hiring a conventional kitchen brigade, he recruits Italian grandmothers—nonnas—from different regions to cook the food they know.
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The restaurant becomes more than a business. It is a meeting place where recipes carry memories, older women find a renewed sense of purpose, and Joe builds a chosen family around the dinner table. The film’s emotional argument is simple but effective: cooking can preserve people who are gone, connect strangers across generations, and give grief somewhere useful to go.
Netflix identifies the central nonna characters as Roberta, played by Lorraine Bracco; Antonella, played by Brenda Vaccaro; Teresa, played by Talia Shire; and Gia, played by Susan Sarandon. Linda Cardellini plays Olivia, Joe’s former high-school acquaintance who assists with the restaurant’s legal affairs. Joe Manganiello plays Joe’s longtime friend Bruno, while Drea de Matteo plays Bruno’s wife, Stella.
How true is Nonnas?
The real story begins with Jody Scaravella’s Enoteca Maria on Staten Island. According to the restaurant’s official account, Scaravella opened the original 35-seat restaurant in 2007 after the deaths of his mother, sister, and grandmother. His response to that loss was to create a restaurant centered on grandmothers and the regional recipes they carried.
That premise is the film’s strongest connection to real life. The real Enoteca Maria initially brought together Italian grandmothers from different parts of Italy. Beginning in 2011, Scaravella developed the idea beyond Italy, and in July 2015 the Staten Island restaurant began welcoming grandmothers representing culinary traditions from countries including Japan, Paraguay, Ukraine, Peru, Greece, and the Dominican Republic.
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Outbyte PC Repair FREEClear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Outbyte Driver Updater FREEScan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →The movie, however, is not a documentary reconstruction. Vince Vaughn’s Joe is a dramatized version of Scaravella, and the screenplay organizes the story around conventional movie beats: personal setbacks, interpersonal conflicts, romantic tension, and carefully shaped character arcs. The four women in the film should not automatically be assumed to correspond one-to-one with four particular real employees. Nor should the film’s kitchen layout, menu, staffing, restaurant chronology, or specific relationships be treated as a factual record of Enoteca Maria.
Best way to describe the film: Nonnas is a fictional feature inspired by the real Enoteca Maria and its founder—not a documentary and not a scene-by-scene account of the restaurant’s history.
The real Enoteca Maria: location and visiting information
The real restaurant is listed at 27 Hyatt Street, Staten Island, New York 10301, in the St. George neighborhood. It is near the Staten Island Ferry terminal and the St. George Theatre. The organization’s directions say the restaurant is about a five-minute walk from the ferry terminal after the ride from Manhattan.
At the time covered by the supplied official visitor information, the restaurant listed seatings on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at 12:30 p.m., 2:30 p.m., 5:30 p.m., and 7:30 p.m. It listed Monday through Thursday as closed. The stated seating duration was two hours, and reservations were required or strongly advisable.
The listed price was $87 per person for a three-course meal, with tax and a 20 percent gratuity included. Drinks and extras cost more. The same information said payment was accepted by cash and Venmo rather than credit cards.
These details are unusually important to verify immediately before traveling. Restaurant schedules, menus, prices, reservation rules, seating times, and payment methods can change. The movie is not a substitute for checking the current official reservation and visitor information, and Netflix does not own, operate, or book the restaurant.
Who are the nonnas in the film?
| Character | Actor | Role in the story |
|---|---|---|
| Roberta | Lorraine Bracco | One of the Italian grandmothers recruited for the restaurant |
| Antonella | Brenda Vaccaro | One of the restaurant’s nonna chefs |
| Teresa | Talia Shire | One of the grandmothers whose cooking and memories shape the kitchen |
| Gia | Susan Sarandon | One of the four principal nonna characters |
| Joe | Vince Vaughn | The restaurant founder, based in broad outline on Jody Scaravella |
| Olivia | Linda Cardellini | Joe’s former school acquaintance who helps with the legal side |
| Bruno | Joe Manganiello | Joe’s longtime friend |
| Stella | Drea de Matteo | Bruno’s wife |
Why food matters so much in Nonnas
Food in Nonnas is not merely decoration or a series of appetizing close-ups. It functions as a language of memory. A recipe can preserve a mother’s habits, a region’s history, an immigrant family’s adaptation, or a grandmother’s way of caring for people who may never have written anything down.
The film’s food vocabulary includes familiar Italian-American staples such as red sauce, ricotta, and meatballs, as well as dishes that may be less familiar to some viewers. Netflix’s related material discusses zeppole, a fried pastry associated with several Italian traditions, and capuzzelle, a Sicilian preparation using a lamb or sheep’s head. Capuzzelle reflects a nose-to-tail cooking tradition in which valuable food is not discarded simply because it is unconventional to modern diners.
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The restaurant’s name also carries cultural information. An enoteca can mean a wine shop or a wine-centered restaurant. The film also uses the word mutande, which means “underwear.” These details help establish the characters’ linguistic and regional worlds, although the film’s culinary vocabulary should not be mistaken for a complete guide to Italian food.
Italian and Italian-American cooking are not one uniform cuisine. Recipes vary by region, family, migration history, available ingredients, religion, economics, and personal taste. That diversity is central to the Enoteca Maria idea: the point is not that one grandmother represents all Italian cooking, but that each grandmother brings a particular food memory and authority.
The film’s central themes
Grief transformed into community
Joe’s restaurant begins as an expression of bereavement. Rather than treating grief as a problem that can be neatly solved, the story shows it becoming a long-term practice: remembering through cooking, feeding other people, and creating a place where family-like bonds can form.
Chosen family
The kitchen brings together people who might not otherwise share a social world. The nonnas are not simply employees supplying colorful wisdom, and Joe is not only an owner. Their shared work creates obligations, arguments, affection, and belonging. The restaurant becomes a chosen family built through repeated acts of preparation and care.
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The film pushes back against the idea that older people belong only in the background of family life. The grandmothers possess practical knowledge, professional authority, and distinctive creative voices. Their age is part of what makes their cooking valuable: the recipes have traveled through decades of experience.
Cultural transmission
Recipes transmit more than ingredients and technique. They carry geography, language, class, migration, ritual, and family history. Once the real Enoteca Maria expanded to include grandmothers from international culinary backgrounds, the concept became an argument for a wider understanding of heritage: food traditions can be deeply specific without being closed to other cultures.
What can you cook after watching?
Netflix published recipe material connected with the film, including Brenda Vaccaro’s ricotta recipe, Joe Manganiello’s sauce and meatballs, and other family recipes associated with cast members and writer Liz Maccie. These should be understood as the contributors’ family recipes connected with the film, not automatically as recipes verified by the real Enoteca Maria.
A useful viewing-to-cooking sequence is to begin with something familiar, such as red sauce, ricotta, or meatballs, and then try a dish that introduces a less familiar tradition. The point is not to reproduce a fictional restaurant menu—there is no evidence that the film’s exact menu represents the current restaurant—but to experience how a recipe becomes a story when someone explains who taught it to them and why it has survived.
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What to read after watching
For readers who want the nonfiction background, Nonna’s House: Cooking and Reminiscing with the Italian Grandmothers of Enoteca Maria is the most direct follow-up. Written by Jody Scaravella with Elisa Petrini, the book combines recipes and recollections from eight Italian grandmothers connected with the restaurant. It is a cookbook and narrative journey into the women’s kitchens, not an official Netflix companion book.
Nonna’s House is especially useful because it shifts attention away from the film’s fictional plot mechanics and toward the people, recipes, and memories that made the real restaurant concept meaningful. It can be read alongside the movie as a way to distinguish the documented culinary project from the dramatized feature.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Is the real restaurant still international?
The original concept began with Italian nonnas from different regions. The restaurant’s later international program broadened the idea to grandmothers from countries and culinary traditions including Japan, Paraguay, Ukraine, Peru, Greece, and the Dominican Republic. That development matters because it shows that Enoteca Maria is not simply a themed Italian restaurant. Its larger mission is to treat grandmothers as holders of culinary heritage, nutritional knowledge, and intergenerational knowledge.
The current organization presents this mission through Nonnas of the World Community, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit intended to carry the Enoteca Maria mission forward. Because the restaurant’s participating cooks, menus, and schedules can change, visitors should confirm what is being served rather than assume that a particular nationality, grandmother, or dish will be available on a specific date.
Nonnas explained in one sentence
Nonnas takes the real story of Enoteca Maria—a Staten Island restaurant founded by a grieving man and centered on grandmother cooks—and reshapes it into a warm fictional drama about memory, food, aging, and the family people create when they sit down to cook and eat together.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Nonnas a true story?
No. Nonnas is a fictional feature film inspired by Jody Scaravella and his Staten Island restaurant, Enoteca Maria. The restaurant and its grandmother-centered concept are real, but the film’s relationships, conflicts, chronology, and character biographies are dramatized.
Where is the real restaurant from Nonnas?
The real restaurant is listed at 27 Hyatt Street, Staten Island, New York 10301, near the Staten Island Ferry and St. George Theatre. The official directions describe it as roughly a five-minute walk from the ferry terminal.
How much does it cost to eat at the real Enoteca Maria?
The official information supplied for this article listed Friday-through-Sunday seatings at 12:30 p.m., 2:30 p.m., 5:30 p.m., and 7:30 p.m., with a two-hour seating. It listed a three-course meal at $87 per person, including tax and a 20 percent gratuity. These details are volatile, so check the official reservation information immediately before visiting.
What book should I read after watching Nonnas?
The closest direct follow-up is Nonna’s House: Cooking and Reminiscing with the Italian Grandmothers of Enoteca Maria, written by Jody Scaravella with Elisa Petrini. It combines recipes and stories from eight Italian grandmothers connected with the restaurant.
The Bottom Line
Bottom line: Nonnas is “true” in its founding premise and emotional inspiration, but not as a literal account of every character or event. The real Enoteca Maria exists at 27 Hyatt Street in Staten Island; verify its official visitor information before going, and look to Nonna’s House for the most direct book-length connection to the restaurant’s real grandmothers.
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