A True Dining Experience at Nonna Dora’s 🍝👨‍🍳

Nonna Dora’s 🇮🇹 is located at 606 2nd Ave, NY, NY 10016 (2nd Ave between 33rd and 34th St) and recently renovated for a more spacious atmosphere. Eating here is a true cozy dining experience serving some of the best homemade pasta in Manhattan including an open kitchen to easily watch the chefs in action, as well as, a TV displaying a recording of the real life grandmother (aka Nonna) making the pasta. The grandmother’s name is Addolorata Marzovilla, or Nonna Dora, who has been making the Puglia-style pasta for about 70 years.

“Nonna Dora has been working at the family restaurant five days a week for five to six hours a day hand making pasta [in the Tribecca location which is transported to the Kips Bay 2nd Ave location]. Some of the more popular pasta dishes she makes include orecchiette, cavatelli, and malloreddus. Dora came to the United States from Puglia where she learned to make pasta from her mother, mother-in-law and sister; her whole family, really.”

Prior to visiting the restaurant you might want to watch the 2025 movie Nonnas to put you in an elevated Italian dining mood.

Author’s Note: It bring backs memories of my July 2024 vacation to Puglia (aka Apulia) region of Italy where I attended a homemade pasta cooking class in Lecce, as well as, dined or visited Ostuni, Matera, Monopoli, Polignano, Bari, Brindisi and Taranto. Orecchiette was my favorite dish which our private chef Geraldo Lieberman cooked for us at our poolside outdoor kitchen. I stayed in a Trullo (dry stone hut) at a TRULLI AMORE private estate complex in Ostuni city surrounded by 100’s of olive trees, views of the Adriatic Sea from the roof and goat herds occasionally roaming the neighborhood with a shepard & dog. My family (affiliated with Sipario Movies) filmed a movie here the previous Winter, so I decided to visit the shoot location. 🎬