Meet the Chef: Pietro Scotti of Da Pietro's

Sitting at a corner table swathed with white linen, I try to imagine how Da Pietro's used looked 22 years ago, before Chef Pietro Scotti gutted the internals of the previous establishment and refashioned it to emulate his own vision.

But it's hard to imagine that any other restaurant could have once resided here; it's like walking around the halls of your home and envisioning how another family might decorate the space. While dining at Da Pietro's, you feel at home.

As I sit, he places a dish of pan-seared grouper that radiates freshness. A salad of beets, endive, citrus and tomatoes saddle the fish, blossoming with colors that tease me into thinking we're in the heart of spring: reds, yellows, purples and greens.

"The tomatoes," he starts, his voice heavily inflected with his Italian heritage, "I picked them from my garden."

He finally sits down next to me, flanked by his wife, Janine. He straightens his olive green chef's coat and smiles, he is always smiling. She asks him some final questions about his up-coming pasta-making class, he answers, and then he turns his attention back to me. "The tomatoes don't even need salt," he adds. "They speak for themselves." 

His appreciation for the freshest ingredients, the handpicked, was ingrained during his childhood, when he lived on his family's farm on the island of Ischia, a small volcanic islet off the coast of Naples, Italy. Scotti helped his family grow the Biancolella grape, a varietal native to Italy's Campania region, selling the finished wine to negociants who would then bottle it for consumption.

"At that time, the kids my age would go to the beach," he said. "But I could never do that. I had to take care of the vines."

His youthful vine duties foreshadowed his life to come as chef and restauranteur. In his coming years he'd find a life of work and little play, but all for the love of the finished product.

On top of his academics and farm duties, he took a stint working as a delivery boy for an Ischia fish market, bringing fulfilled orders to neighborhood restaurants. "When I went to deliver fish to local restaurants, I was always fascinated," he explained. "I thought that one day I would like to [cook]."

Scotti first took an apprenticeship at Hotel Isabella where he was paid solely with kitchen experiences culled. When he outgrew the apprenticeship, he took his first paying job as an underling dishwasher at another Ischia restaurant, Hotel Oriente, and gradually worked his way up the kitchen hierarchy and shaped his culinary vision.

After a term with the Italian army, serving as one of the kitchen supervisors, it was in early autumn of 1974 that Scotti finally made his way to America. "My sister wanted to come to the states," he explained. "So, I told her I'd keep her company. We stayed with my father's brother in Brooklyn, New York." 

Only three nights of lodging at his uncle's house was necessary before Scotti joined an old friend at a now-closed Wilton restaurant. He continued to chef there for nearly 1o years while also opening a small deli and catering company in Norwalk.

"My dream was always to open my own restaurant," he said. And during a morning skim of a Westport paper in 1987, Scotti found real estate that would be remodeled into Da Pietro's. 

"There was a property for sale, and it was a 30-seat restaurant in Westport," he recalled.  "It was as exactly what I was looking for; it was perfect." His dream was beginning to be whittled.

By the time the renovations were complete, the space was converted into a quaint, 22-seat restaurant that would allow Scotti to personally craft dishes with a fastidious hand. Because of the restaurant's intimacy, Scotti is able to handmake all of the pastas, dousing them with his Italian authenticity. He falls into a rhythm, an artistic zone; it's a task that's not only a job, but also a passion.

"Sometimes I even find it difficult to teach a pasta class," Scotti began. "There might be a period during the class that I just fall silent. I love making pasta."

Not only is it a work of love that makes pulling him away from the kitchen hard to do, but the clausterphobic kitchen is operated by only three cooks, Scotti included. But when he does leave the kitchen during a brief respite between lunch and dinner services, he spends his time with his family. He pulls into the driveway, and his children, Tomaso Giovani, 8, and Lucia Caterena, 6, take full advantage.

"Tomaso likes to cook, he follows me." Scotti explained. "But I don't want him to be a chef. It takes a lot of time away from the family. You're never with them." 

But when he is with them, he'll bake a cake with Tomaso, feeding his son fatherly, culinary advice. Lucia, too, tries her baker's hand.  She helps bake muffins.

Scotti is a man of passion; he seems to find positivity in every moment of the clock. "I'm always great, excellent, always good," he smiles widely. "No reason to complain, you know what I mean?"