Peter and Georgia Riccobono with their son, Quinn, inside the new location of Polpetti (Photo by Chauncey Jenkins)
Every Monday night, Peter Riccobono rents a car, hops on Interstate 95 and heads to Philadelphia to meet a pal and purveyor. Once there, he loads up on Brooklyn-made bagels and rolls, whips a U-turn, and heads back to Richmond. It’s a trip he has been dutifully taking for years now, and it’s all part of the plan to bring a taste of traditional, New York-style Italian food to the city. This week, Riccobono and wife Georgia entered a new phase of that journey, introducing a second location of their deli, Polpetti, at 515 N. Harrison St. Previously home to Capitol Waffle Shop, the sibling spot is steps away from the campus of Virginia Commonwealth University, a decision that was intentional.
“This location was insane. We were like, ‘We’ve got to do this; even if we wind up with both places, this would be perfect.’ We want each space to have its own personality, and, really, we have a much, much bigger picture for our long-term goals,” Riccobono says.
Along a walkable, busy corridor, the newest family-run outpost is currently open from 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., serving breakfast and lunch, espresso, and locally made gelato. The menu, a nod to the owners’ Northern upbringing, features sandwiches named for New York neighborhoods, including the BedStuy, served on a kaiser roll with Taylor ham, butter, egg and American cheese, or the Brighton, a French toast bagel with sausage, egg, cheddar and hash browns, along with a build-your-own option.
A case is stocked with Richmond-based DeLuca Gelato, in flavors ranging from olive oil and salt to pistachio and espresso, and affogatos (combining gelato with espresso) are available. La Colombe is the coffee of choice, and, according to Riccobono, they are the first public restaurant in the area offering it.
While the new shop is still getting off the ground, Riccobono says, “We’re going to have lunch as well, sort of a snapshot of our most popular sandwiches here to start.”
Polpetti’s Soprano sandwich made the cover of our March 2023 issue. (Photo by Justin Chesney)
The sandwiches — such as their signature Soprano, a tiered torpedo featuring ham, soppressata, capicola, provolone, spicy arugula, tomato, olive salad and garlic mayo on a seeded sub roll, or their chicken cutlet, layered with prosciutto, roasted peppers, fresh mozzarella and fixin’s — are what put Polpetti on many diners’ radars.
For the husband-and-wife team, hospitality and home-cooked meals run in their blood. Both grew up in New York, each one of six kids in big, rambunctious Italian families. Food has been a constant centerpiece in their lives.
“I always had a passion for cooking,” Riccobono says. “My grandmother was a fantastic chef. My dad was a fantastic chef. It’s been three or four generations in restaurants now.”
Riccobono’s great-grandfather immigrated to New York from Italy’s Puglia region and waited tables before opening a restaurant; Riccobono happily recalls Christmases in Queens where plywood folding tables were loaded with platters of food to feed the 50 family members in attendance. The culinary school graduate’s resume includes chef stints at Hyde Hotels, the Smithsonian and its National Gallery of Art, and country clubs. Georgia has a background in food service and event planning and has worked with Whole Foods as a team leader. In a previous Richmond magazine article, she said, “We both have been in the food service our entire lives.”
Polpetti originally started as a catering operation. In early 2020, it was the anchor of Market on Meadow (719 N. Meadow St.), a collaborative culinary effort comprising Polpetti, Filipino food truck Auntie Ning’s and Williamsburg-based Column 15 Coffee. The goal was to operate as a commissary kitchen and create an environment for small food businesses to flourish. But the location and the pandemic proved to be hurdles.
Eventually, Polpetti was the sole remaining business in the formerly shared space. When they launched a sandwich program inspired by the hoagies of the North a few years back, it proved to be a hit. “We started doing a New York-style sandwich program, and then it grew,” Riccobono says.
Since then, they have been eyeing next steps. While the Harrison Street shop is expected to be more of a dine-in venture, their vision board for Meadow Street includes a reimagined space and rebranding into a full-fledged Italian market.
“We want to get an ABC license, to introduce more of a full Italian market feel,” Riccobono says.“We want to use the summer to test and adjust, expand the menu, expand the staff, and then, come fall, be full tilt. We miss all that stuff [from the Italian markets of New York], so we believe there’s a market for it [here].”
Polpetti plans to expand its grab-and-go offerings in the coming weeks, and customers can expect to score pints of Sunday sauce, aka gravy — homemade, family-recipe red sauce — meatballs, pasta dishes, salads and lemon-caper chicken.
In the future, they aim to have late-night hours on the weekends, with a menu including Jersey disco fries (served with gravy and cheese) and breakfast sandwiches.
Inside the new Polpetti, the dining room is clad in white-and-gold wallpaper showcasing an illustration of the Amalfi Coast and accented with chevron-style tiles. There are a handful of tables and window seats, as well as two-tops outside, and a mural over the archway to the dining room reads “Italian for Life.”
“We’ve been so lucky that we’ve built these relationships; that’s what’s on that mural,” Riccobono says. The mural is the work of their employee Julie Egresitz, a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. “The mural is of her, my son and all of our top customers.”
These connections fuel the Riccobonos. Of Polpetti’s evolution, Riccobono says, “We’re kind of old school, so it’s been all word of mouth. I wanted to grow it at an organic pace. We would love to see a place in the West End, a place in Midlothian. My next, hopefully big, venture is really to get a good warehouse space where we can actually build out a full Italian bakery that is a commissary to all of our locations.”
Polpetti’s 515 N. Harrison St. outpost is open from 7:30 a.m to 3:30 p.m. Wednesday through Monday; the original location at 719 N. Meadow St. is open Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
