From Contursi Terme
to your table.
A small town in Southern Italy, between the Amalfi Coast and the Cilento area — surrounded by mountains, springs, and the kind of cooking that brings people together. That’s where My Mamma was born, and that’s the spirit we serve every night in Sarasota.
A family kitchen,
brought to Sarasota.
My Mamma was born from our roots in Contursi Terme, a small town in Southern Italy surrounded by mountains, natural springs and sulfur thermal waters, located between the Amalfi Coast and the Cilento area. The kind of place where the smell of focaccia from the wood oven greets you as you walk down the street, and lunch on Sunday is a three-hour, four-generation affair.
For six years we ran our restaurant in Salerno, on the Tyrrhenian coast. There — between the bay and the mountains — we learned, every single day, what real Italian cooking means: simple ingredients, patient sauces, recipes that don’t change because change isn’t always progress.
In 2020 we crossed an ocean and brought the same kitchen to Sarasota. Same bread, same pasta dough, same Sunday gravy. Just a different street outside the window.
The focaccia that
started everything.
Every morning at six, before Sarasota wakes up, we knead the focaccia dough. It’s the same recipe Nonna Maria used for forty years in her kitchen in Contursi — slow-fermented for eighteen hours, baked on a stone hearth, crowned with San Marzano tomato and fior di latte from the Amalfi mountains.
It’s not “blistered,” it’s not “artisan,” it’s not “elevated.” It’s just focaccia, the way Nonna Maria taught us. And it sells out by Friday night.
“Il pane non si compra. Il pane si fa.”(Bread isn’t bought. Bread is made.)
Three rules,
kept religiously.
Real ingredients.
San Marzano tomatoes, fior di latte from the Amalfi mountains, Italian flour, fresh herbs from our garden. We don’t cut corners on the things that matter most.
Family recipes.
Every dish on the menu has a name behind it — a nonna, a zia, a Sunday lunch in Campania. We don’t reinvent. We honor what was taught.
Time, taken.
Eighteen hours for focaccia. Six hours for ragù. Three days for tiramisù to set. Real food can’t be rushed — and we don’t try.
Come eat with us.
3105 N Tamiami Trl, Sarasota — open Mon–Fri 4–9PM, Sat 4–9:30PM, Sun 12–9PM. Walk-ins welcome, reservations easier.