Italian Soul Food And Graffiti at Mario's.

For nearly four decades, Mario's has stood like a beacon at 89 Main Road Green Point.   Inside, lights  twinkle their welcome. What a relief it is to see those lights; it means that Mario's Ristorante Italiano is alive and well.

Mario and Guisepina ( Pina or Pinina for short) Marzagalli  opened their restaurant in Green Point in 1971.  Immigrants from San Colombano Al Lambro, just outside Milan, they brought with them to a sleepy Cape Town, their knowledge of Italian food.  At that time, Cape Town did not boast the many, excellent Italian restaurants and bountiful delicatessens that it does  today.   Green Point had not been developed and business was tough.   Mario, dressed in a suit, tie and white shirt, would come to work each day and wait for custom.  Pina tells how after some weeks, he ran into the Main Road, hands waving and shouting,  'For God's sake, come and eat here!"   All of us who knew Mario can well picture that scene.




Ask any food lover of a certain vintage about Mario's Ristorante Italiano and they will tell you Mario stories.  Eugene and I and our family have our own Mario stories.  Children who grew up eating that wonderful food now bring their own children to Mario's.  We all think longingly and lovingly of our favourite dishes.

Eugene's favourite dish is indisputably Mrs Mario's oxtail casserole.  Cooked for 4-5 hours, the meat falls off the bone, succulent, juicy and tasty beyond belief.  He rates it as the best oxtail he has ever eaten, anywhere.  My favourites include the divine antipasti and the superb homemade pasta.  All the pasta, except spaghetti is homemade.  My favourite pasta; taglierini con pesto, made with sweet basil, pine nuts and garlic or taglierini al olio, made with olive oil and garlic.    I generally order a half portion of pasta and a half portion of Melanzane di Parmigiano and enjoy it served on the same plate. What a feast!  Italian soul food.

Microwave ovens and ' bain- maries' are verboten.  No frozen and recycled food at Mario's.  A certain number of portions are made each day and kept in a refrigerator, never a freezer.  Nothing is kept bubbling endlessly on a bain-marie.   It takes half a day to make enough pasta for 2 or 3 days and when that is used up they start the process all over again.

The menu provides only a skeleton of what is actually available.  Regulars don't even bother with it.   They wait eagerly to hear if their favourites are available.  The specials are the key to everyone's favourites.  The freshest seasonal produce, expertly and lovingly prepared.  The specials are regular additions to the menu and I am certain that the clientèle would stage a revolt if they were not offered.   Crispy quail, hearty ossobuco and lamb knuckles, tasty Italian sausage, sea food cooked exactly as you like it,  juicy marrow bones on toast  and sometimes tripe and crumbed brains with capers as a main course. 

On a Sunday night, a special treat.  Provided there are orders, the restaurant prepares Bollito.  Great pots of boiled meats and separate pots of boiled vegetables.  All this is served with Salsa Verde. The meal is spread out allowing enough time to enjoy all the flavours.  First the broth from the meats, then the meats and the vegetables with the 'green sauce'.  Locals as well as people from abroad phone to reserve tables and not only for Bollito on Sundays,

The uninitiated  may be rather taken aback at first by the hugeness of the restaurant interior.   It is a large room arranged with tables covered in snowy white linen cloths surrounded by chairs upholstered in red vinyl. Casablanca fans suspended from the ceiling, whirr around.  And an amazing phenomenon, graffiti messages from happy customers, on every available patch of wall and ceiling.    But these newcomers very soon find out what the cognoscenti have always known, that a warm Italian welcome from matriarch Pina Marzagalli, or her children, Marilena or Marco,draws them into the warm heart of the place.

The graffiti affords happy reading.  We found a special place on a wall where 27 years ago, my then very young daughter left a message.  So strange to see it again.  Other graffiti partly obscures the writing, but a record nevertheless of a time long past.

When Mario passed away in 1986 Pina took over and has been at the helm ever since.  Ever the matriarch, Pina of the perfect alabaster skin and glorious smile, runs the restaurant with her children Marilena and Marco Giovanni.  'Mrs Mario' rules with an iron fist in her velvet oven glove.   Her children will tell you how traditional she is in her approach to life and to the restaurant.  They took 5 years to persuade her to get a hi-fi sound system for the restaurant.   Every Wednesday evening without fail Pina eats out.  She tries other restaurants to see what is on offer and to observe the mechanics of other establishments.  To this day she still uses a book that her husband Mario used, La Grande Cucina.

On the day that we were there for lunch, we saw the family sit down to eat lunch together.  Obviously after the lunch guests had left.  I asked Marilena what they were having for lunch.  Ragu alla Bolognese; meat ravioli and Bresaola.  Mouth watering stuff and that is only lunch.  A few hours later they will enjoy dinner, also multiple courses.  But not Pina.  It was Wednesday and she was eating out.

We hope that you too will enjoy a 'Mario's experience.'  Leave the busy Green Point Main Road behind and enter a world where for a while it seems that time has stood still.  There you will eat wonderful real Italian food, prepared with love and passion and where the flavours of Northern Italy will engulf you.   Buon Appetito!

                                                                          
Mario's is open for lunch on Tuesday - Sunday from 12.30 until 2.30pm.
They are open for  dinner on Tuesday - Sunday from 6.45 - 10.30pm.
They are closed on Mondays and Saturday lunch.
Telephone:  021 - 439-6644

Eugene and I love eating out.  Our pleasure is to enjoy meals in restaurants that are special to us.  We always
pay for our meals wherever we go and whenever we eat out.