Just in general, bringing people up and down, making them scream, and making them fall in love is memorable. It was known around town that if Steve Martorano was DJing, you’d have a great time, because I could feel the soul of the crowd and make everyone move. I learned how to spin music and matched beats myself. No one ever showed me how to spin music, like no one ever told me how to cook. So I became a DJ, then started selling Italian sandwiches door to door. My role models used to be all gangsters but I realized that was a dead-end road. The truth was I was a street guy, that’s where I’m from. He also talked about his celeb following, what he cooks on his nights off, his days DJing at Valentino’s in Cherry Hill and competing with some major culinary giants at his new spot in Atlantic City. Martorano tells us about leaving behind the gangster role models he had as a kid, starting as a one-man sandwich shop in Philly, losing everything when the economy went downhill and eventually finding his success again. A fifth restaurant in Las Vegas is slated for this fall. In fact, the South Philly native has four successful eateries–in locations from Florida to Las Vegas to the newest eatery, Martorano’s in Atlantic City. Steve Martorano knows a thing or two about what it takes to run a successful restaurant. “I have no idea” she said, but she did point me toward Oscungizzi’s, which started making five-cent slices of tomato pie in their basement in 1910, but now is more of a pizzeria that serves hot “upside down pizza” (square, with cheese under the sauce, a related but very different product that we also have here in Philadelphia).Steve Martorano on his local roots, serving up authentic Italian fare, and his new Atlantic City spot I asked Maria if she knew who made the first in Utica, and she laughed.
The only way you’re getting it is by walking in the door.Įven in tomato pie hot spots, people don’t know much about its history or where it first appeared in the U.S.
Roma doesn’t distribute their tomato pie to other shops or retailers like a lot of bakeries do. The sauce is also tweaked to shine at room temperature and stand on its own as the main flavor of this simple product. But Steven perfected a fairly complicated process for the dough that involves specific proofing times and several separate trips into the oven. Lesser pies can feel sort of haphazardly thrown together-not a shocker for a product that was likely originally just a use for scraps of dough and extra sauce.
Rather than relying on a standard recipe, Steven did his homework experimenting with different doughs, sauces, and techniques for about a year before settling on what he thought made the best tomato pie. Maria also filled me in on what makes Roma’s pie so special.
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