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Showing posts from February, 2019

Romance and Italian Comfort Food at Bella Gioia in Brooklyn

To me, Valentine's Day is an over-hyped holiday. So I'm usually happy to spend it at home with my husband and a bowl full of his pasta and homemade sauce. This year, however, we took a walk on the wild side and dined out the day after V-Day and savored scrumptious Sicilian comfort food at Bella Gioia in Brooklyn.   Located on the edge of Park Slope and Gowanus, Bella Gioia is a blink and you might miss it hidden gem. But inside the cozy, 62-seat eatery with vaulted ceilings and a rustic wine cellar charm, owner and executive chef Nick "Nico" Daniele is serving Italian cuisine that can rival any  hotspot  in Manhattan.   The millennial chef hails from Staten Island, his family has roots in the Sicilian seaside town of Cefalu (there's a map framed on the wall) and he even honed his culinary chops in Parma, Italy.  And with the creativity represented in his menu, it's not surprising Daniele was a contestant on the Food  Network's   Chopped . For our