Scittino’s Italian Marketplace, a family-owned Catonsville institution for more than 50 years, will open a second store on Falls Road, just north of the Baltimore City and county line.
The expansion will give the Schittino family room to share more recipes handed down through the generations, said owner Franco Schittino, whose grandparents and father, Leonardo, opened the Italian market as Sorrento’s in 1973. They eventually changed the name to Scittino’s, dropping the H to avoid mispronunciation.
“We’re really just looking to spread our wings and share what we do with a broader audience,” he said.
While the new store at 6241 Falls Road will lean on the same fundamentals — Italian goods, deli meats and housemade cookies and cannolis — as the original location, it will also have more room for hot meals and sit-down service, as well as a bar specializing in Italian wines.
“There are all these recipes we could never make out of Catonsville,” said Schittino, who looks forward to introducing customers to Southern Italian staples like tomato-based pesto alla trapanese, breadcrumb-and-caper-stuffed swordfish involtini and his grandmother’s eggplant parmesan, a “really light, fresh” version that’s “different than what anyone’s familiar with.”
Overall, he said, the menu will have a more Mediterranean bent, featuring citrusy and light dishes as well as lots of seafood. Diners can also try a variety of cuts of meat from the in-house butcher shop, from porchetta to prime beef.
The Schittino family hails from the Sicilian municipality of Lascari and opened their market about a decade after arriving in the U.S. The Catonsville shop, at 1701 Edmondson Ave., started as a small grocery store and butchery called Sorrento’s, and the Schittinos gradually expanded its footprint over the years, adding hot food and other goods.
When Franco Schittino’s father and grandfather died in the 1980s, his aunt Josie Schittino and uncle Sal Schittino stepped in to run the business, shepherding it through the next three decades. Franco Schittino bought their shares when they retired five years ago.
He’s bringing in John Klaus and Brad Black, both formerly of The Prime Rib steakhouse in Mount Vernon, to lend their expertise as general managers of the Schittino’s on Falls Road. Klaus will curate a wine and beer selection that’s heavy on Italian imports, while Black will run the market’s front-of-house operations.
The new store will have 42 seats and an outdoor patio for al fresco dining. Schittino is in the process of hiring new employees and hopes to open by early December.
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