San Morello at the Shinola Hotel is throwing open its dining room and Woodward Avenue patio again this September for its second annual Festa di San Gennaro, a one-day Italian-American food and drink celebration set for Sept. 19, from 4 to 9 p.m. The event promises made-to-order street festival favorites, cocktails and a lineup of local chefs pulled from some of Metro Detroit's most talked-about kitchens.
According to The Michigan Chronicle, the festival is modeled on a longtime New York City tradition and will offer an evening of Italian-American food, drinks and entertainment inside San Morello's dining room and along its outdoor patio at Woodward and Grand River avenues. The menu is expected to include cacio e pepe, porchetta, spiedini, meatballs, and cannoli and zeppole for dessert, alongside cocktails, beer, wine, and nonalcoholic drinks. Live music and entertainment will round out the evening.
The New York event that inspired San Morello's celebration has deep roots. The Feast of San Gennaro in Manhattan's Little Italy was founded in 1926 by Neapolitan immigrants and is marking its 100th anniversary this year, running from Sept. 17 to Sept. 27, according to Wikipedia. What began as a one-day block party on Mulberry Street honoring the patron saint of Naples grew over the decades into an 11-day festival. San Gennaro, or Saint Januarius, was the Bishop of Benevento who was reportedly beheaded in 305 AD during the persecution of Christians under Emperor Diocletian, and his feast day has since been observed each year on Sept. 19 — the same date San Morello has chosen for its Detroit version.
A Chef Lineup With Local Star Power
The roster of participating chefs reads like a highlight reel of Detroit's Italian dining scene. San Morello executive chef Cory Barberio and Oak & Reel chef-owner Jared Gadbaw are both slated to cook, and the pairing is no coincidence — the two are already working together on a separate venture. Hour Detroit reported that Barberio and Gadbaw have partnered to open a new traditional Italian-American restaurant, Angelo's Fine Italian, at 16844 Kercheval Ave. in Grosse Pointe this fall, with Gadbaw bringing experience from earning two Michelin stars at Marea in New York before opening Oak & Reel, and Barberio having helped open San Morello in 2018.
Hoodline previously reported on that Grosse Pointe project, noting the new restaurant will focus on house-made pastas and classic red-sauce dishes in the former City Kitchen space. Also joining the festa lineup are John Vermiglio and Joe Giacomino of Grey Ghost, the Midtown Detroit restaurant they opened in July 2016 alongside restaurateur David Vermiglio and bartender Will Lee. Grey Ghost, named for a Prohibition-era rum runner on the Detroit River, celebrated its 10th anniversary in Detroit this summer, according to Metro Intelligencer.
An Out-of-Town Pastry Tradition Joins the Table
Guest chef Dean Nole is also on the bill, bringing a very different kind of Italian pedigree to Woodward Avenue. Nole co-founded Cafe CaNole in 1996, a Mohawk Valley Italian bakery and restaurant based in New Hartford and Utica, New York, that is celebrating its own 30th anniversary this September. The shop is widely known for traditional cannoli, pasticiotti and specialty cakes, a fitting complement to the festa's dessert spread of cannoli and zeppole.
Chef Andrew Carmellini and chef Ramon Amaut round out the lineup. Carmellini co-founded NoHo Hospitality Group in 2009 with partners Josh Pickard and Luke Ostrom, building a national portfolio that manages hotel dining programs in Detroit, New York City and Nashville and has earned two James Beard Foundation awards, per NoHo Hospitality Group. The company also operates dining programs at prominent boutique hotels including The Greenwich Hotel and The Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York.
Why Woodward Avenue, Why Now
San Morello's downtown Detroit home gives the festa a distinctive backdrop. The restaurant sits inside the Shinola Hotel at 1400 Woodward Ave., which opened in January 2019 through a partnership between the Shinola brand and real estate firm Bedrock, restoring the historic 1915 T.B. Rayl & Co. hardware building and the 1936 Singer Sewing Machine building. The 129-room boutique hotel spans five restored and new structures in Detroit's historic shopping district, as reported by Forbes.
The festival's timing also lines up with a substantial local audience. Roughly 243,000 residents in Metro Detroit, about 5.7% of the region's total population, report Italian ancestry, according to U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey data published by Statistical Atlas. That legacy traces back to waves of Italian immigration that expanded alongside the growth of the auto industry in the early 20th century. It is worth noting that while the festa borrows its concept from Manhattan's sprawling, multi-day street festival, San Morello's version is hosted on private restaurant and hotel premises rather than a municipal street shutdown, running for a single evening rather than the 11 days New Yorkers get in Little Italy.
