These Central Jersey restaurant owners are inspired by moms

Everyone thinks their mom and grandma were the best cooks.

But the kitchen magic showed by the moms and grandmas of these Central Jersey restaurant owners inspired them to enter the restaurant business and honor the women who raised them.

On Mother's Day and every day, these restaurant owners celebrate their matriarchs with restaurants inspired by their moms and grandmas, cooking with the same recipes they enjoyed as kids and showing their customers the same love of food and family.

Catherine Lombardi, New Brunswick

Mark Pascal’s grandmother, Catherine Lombardi, is more than his restaurant’s muse.

Everything from her name and her recipes to her gaudy lamps and red couches inspired Catherine Lombardi, a nearly 20-year-old Italian restaurant perched above sister restaurant Stage Left.

Surrounded by Pacal's family photos, customers eat dishes made with the same recipes that his grandmother followed for Sunday dinner, like lasagna with meat gravy; eggplant Parmigiana; and orecchiette with sausage, broccoli rabe and garlic. Nearly every item on the menu was once cooked in her Brooklyn kitchen – or at her daughter’s Long Island home.

“So often when we would go in the summer, the first thing you would see is my grandmother cooking and the first thing you would smell is the fried eggplant or zucchini flower pancakes,” Pascal said.

More: Catherine Lombardi in New Brunswick channels grandma's Italian cooking

But no dish reminds Pascal of his grandmother more than her blue crabs, which the family would catch outside the Long Island waterfront home, served with with marinara and spaghetti. The restaurant now serves the dish once per year – outside.

“We get pretty messy tearing them apart with our hands when the blue crabs are covered in marinara sauce and spaghetti,” Pascal said.

Pascal and restaurant co-owner Francis Schott have tasted it all cooked by Lombardi herself. When they went to New York City restaurant auctions to outfit Stage Left in 1992, they always stopped by Pascal's grandmother's home if they were in Brooklyn.“If I’m in Brooklyn, my grandmother will smell me, so we needed to stop by her house. And it didn’t matter what day it was – she was always cooking to get ready for Sunday dinner and within ten minutes, we would be fed,” said Pascal. “And that was how I was implicated into the food world – you just made spectacular food everyday.”

Pascal said he wasn’t interested in cooking when he he was young. He was only interested in eating, and that was easy at his grandmother's table. Pascal, the youngest of the family, would always get special treatment from his grandmother.

Unfortunately, his grandmother never experienced her grandson's version of her recipes. She passed away in 1994 at 86 years old – 11 years before Catherine Lombardi opened.

But her spirit is always present.

“She sees Catherine Lombardi every day,” said Pascal.

Go: 3 Livingston Ave., New Brunswick; 732-296-9463, catherinelombardi.com.

Lita, Aberdeen

David Viana, Lita's co-owner and executive chef, didn’t grow up wanting to cook.

But growing up in a big Portuguese immigrant family who all lived on the same block in the “Little Lisboa” neighborhood of Newark, he saw a master chef every day.

“My grandma cooked from scratch. We had a chicken coop and I would watch her kill and pluck a chicken. I was terrified as a four-year-old,” laughed David, a James Beard-nominated chef and former “Top Chef” contestant. “Her entire life and day was in the kitchen. I respected food, loved food and had an appreciation for it because of my grandma.”

He expresses that same reverence at Lita, his one-year-old Portuguese restaurant in Aberdeen named after his mother, Rosa Lita Viana, “who cooked for us everyday and believed in a home-cooked meal,” said David.

Both Rosa Lita and her mother, Isaura Sequiera, are the inspirations behind the modern Portuguese eatery.

“It’s an ode to all mothers,” David said.

Rosa Lita and Isaura are present everywhere in the restaurant, from the logo that depicts Rosa Lita’s wedding photo, to a painting of Isaura, to the colorful rooster figurines on the shelves reminiscient of those once in Rosa Lita's kitchen.

And of course, so are their recipes.

Local accolades: This Old Bridge restaurant, hidden in a strip mall, named of the best restaurants in US

Although they weren’t all easy for David to get. He had to make a deal with Rosa Lita to get her rissóis de camarão (shrimp turnovers) on the menu.

“She gave the recipe to me on one condition – that from now on, I make them for the holidays. The restaurant caters them now for our parties,” said David. “When I was a kid, she would make 100 of them for a party, and I would probably eat 20.”

When David was young, his mom and grandma would make bitoque (steak with fried egg and French fries) as a reward for getting good grades or when he deserved a treat.

Now, he – and customers – can have it whenever they want, as it's been on the otherwise everchanging three-course prix fixe menu since the restaurant opened.

Although Rosa Lita is here to see her son’s ode to his family – “I’m not used to seeing my name in print,” she said after seeing the many accolades the restaurant has received – Isaura passed away 12 years ago.

But David knows that she would make him a big plate of bitoque if she were around.

“She would be so proud that there’s another cook in the family,” David said.

Go: 1055 Route 34, Aberdeen; 732-696-8517, thelovelylita.com.

Mama Rosina's, Bound Brook

Rosina Todaro passed away from breast cancer in 1988 at just 44 years old, leaving behind her husband and three sons.

But what the “happy-go-lucky woman who always wanted to feed you,” as described by her son Dominick Todaro, also left behind was her love of cooking – and all of her family recipes that she brought when she immigrated from the Calabria region of Italy in 1963.

Today, those same recipes are followed in the kitchen of Mama Rosina’s, a Bound Brook restaurant that’s been open since 1989 – just one year after the matriarch passed away.

Owned by her sons Dominick and Joseph Todaro, 90 percent of the Bound Brook Train Station restaurant’s menu is right from Rosina’s kitchen.

Those dishes include the pollo Rosina with chicken, mushrooms, artichokes and sun-dried tomatoes in a pink cream sauce and topped with mozzarella; and Mama Rosina’s famous pork braciola and cavatelli that’s stuffed with Italian spices before being slowly simmered in red tomato sauce and placed over cavatelli.

“Just smelling that pork braciole cooking for a Sunday dinner was the best, and my mom would put it over my favorite pasta – cavatelli,” recalled Dominick. “Mom made her own pastas, too, and the high-quality cavatelli pasta that we buy is just like hers.”

Nostalgic eats: These NJ restaurants inside old train stations transport diners into the past

Although Rosina never got to see how her sons honored her through their restaurant while she was alive, she now literally smiles over the cozy, nostalgic spot as a portrait of her hangs on the wall.

“When my parents immigrated here from Italy, all they brought was their recipes and love for food and family,” said Dominick. “My mom would be so proud.”

Go: 350 E Main St, Bound Brook; 732-805-3377, mamarosinas.com.

Contact: JIntersimone@MyCentralJersey.com

Jenna Intersimone has been a staff member at the USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey since 2014, although she's a lifetime Jersey girl who considers herself an expert in everything from the Jersey Shore to the Garden State's buzzing downtowns. To get unlimited access to her stories about food, drink and fun, please subscribe or activate your digital account today. You can also follow her on Instagram at @seejennaeat and on Twitter at @JIntersimone.

This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: Mother's Day: NJ restaurant owners inspired by moms