Italian-born chef of this intimate restaurant in Union County cooks from the heart
Adolfo Marisi, chef and owner of Lupa Ristorante in Berkeley Heights, has prepared Italian fare in a Tuscan medieval fortress, and served celebrities and professional athletes.
He co-founded European powerhouse eatery De Novo in Montclair and Edgewater, helping put the refined restaurant on the map during its early days in some of the most discerning communities in the area.
His subtle and elegant Italian cuisine can be inspired by anything.
“Through years of experience, you have this sixth sense of putting things together that marry well. It’s spur of the moment,” said Marisi. “... One time, I went to the market and saw raspberries. Then someone dropped a glass, and it was so loud with the crystal breaking. Something came to mind.”
Marisi froze the raspberries and then separated each granule, like pieces of a broken glass. Then he placed the frozen granules over cocoa-spiced venison loin with celery root puree, berry compote and rosemary foam. As the freeze-dried raspberry granules defrosted, they left specks of juice throughout the dish, like splatters of magenta paint.
It’s this kind of thoughtful passion that inspired Marisi to open Lupa, the first restaurant the Italian-born chef has solely owned, in late 2020.
Since then, the intimate 75-seat restaurant — featuring a casual section with a bar, as well as a bright, more upscale section surrounded by Marisi’s photography — has served an ever-changing, modern menu.
Visitors can find traditional dishes such as cacio e pepe, and gnocchi with tomato, melted mozzarella and toasted breadcrumbs.
“I believe in respecting tradition, raw materials and seasons, but at the same time we are evolving and want to make things better,” Marisi said. “If you make changes with that Mediterranean flair, that French touch, a Portuguese sense, that Spanish tapas belief and put those together, you come up with something really nice.”
Other dishes include 'nduja (spreadable Calabrian chili/pork sausage) atop grilled sourdough; and pizzettes (mini pizzas) with pears, blue cheese, bacon, caramelized onions and mozzarella.
There's also Tuscan fish stew with mussels, clams, monkfish, prawns, scungilli and calamari; and cider-brined Berkshire pork rib chop with spicy pineapple frutta, bacon and pistachio relish.
Plus, there are always specials, which change weekly, such as seared sea bass topped with a Moroccan glaze made with 36 spices and reduced over ten hours; and baccalà, a pacific cod loin with seafood broth, five onion puttanesca soffritto, oven roasted black olive caviar and lavender vinegar.
“Instead of making a heavy red sauce with the baccalà, we created a clear tomato broth and made a sofrito out of those ingredients,” Marisi said. “Then we had a lighter broth that still had that traditional puttanesca style, and then we added a little acidity with lavender vinegar. We took something very traditional and gave it a little twist.”
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That philosophy extends to the ambiance at Lupa. The decor is dominated by Marisi's photographs of vibrant scenes in cities such as Florence, Siena and Rome.
"From the moment you walk in, you look at this menu that I think is different," he said. "There’s this continuity of experience with my waitstaff, the photographs, the music and the food.”
It took a continuity of experience for Marisi at arrive at the moment he was ready to open Lupa, serendipitously during the height of the pandemic.
Marisi was born in Abruzzo, a region of Southern Italy marked by hilltop towns, swaths of greenery, and medieval and Renaissance history. He moved to the U.S. with his parents when he was 13. He later worked at the Pluckemin Inn before heading back to Italy to work at famed restaurants Relais La Suvera in Tuscany and Hotel Grifone in the Dolomites.
But soon, Marisi missed his family in the United States.
“I would see my family in between gigs and after so many years, it just got tiring,” Marisi said. "The beauty of being able to express somewhere else in the world, it just kind of faded away because my family wasn’t there.”
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So, Marisi returned to New Jersey in 2013 and was approached by Robert Tokash, who owns the building that now houses Lupa.
Tokash wanted Marisi to be the chef at his restaurant, but Marisi turned down the offer to open De Novo with a partner, as he wanted to own his own eatery rather than work for someone else.
But just as Marisi was feeling the time had come for him to move on from De Novo in 2020, the pandemic hit, and Tokash was eager to exit the restaurant industry and allow a chef to open their own restaurant in the then-dormant space.
Pandemic or not, Marisi was ready to show his culinary philosophy to the world.
“My idea to start my own restaurant stemmed from being born, raised and trained in a country where everything we cook is from the heart,” Marisi said. “If you are not part of that culture, you can be good but you’ll never feel it like I do. I always wanted something of my own because there is no one else who understands me other than me.”
Go: 449 Springfield Ave, Berkeley Heights; 908-464-6644, luparistorante.com.
Jenna Intersimone has been a staff member at the USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey since 2014, after becoming a blogger-turned-reporter following the creation of her award-winning travel blog. To get unlimited access to her stories about food, drink and fun, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.
Contact: JIntersimone@MyCentralJersey.com
This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: Union County restaurants: Lupa chef cooks from the heart
