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A (mostly) spoken history of Pasta Casareccia and 40 years of feeding NDG

How a kid who swore he'd never run the family business ended up exactly in the institution where he belongs.

Tom Zalatnai

Tom Zalatnai

November 10, 2025- Read time: 7 min
A (mostly) spoken history of Pasta Casareccia and 40 years of feeding NDGMauro Petraccone at Pasta Casareccia, the NDG trattoria he once swore he'd never run. Forty years later, he wouldn't want to be any place else. | Photography by Tom Zalatnai / @tomzalatnai

"I remember vividly, very regular customers, this couple... they were like, 'Oh, Mauro, when you're older, you're going to run this place.' And I leaned over and I said, 'If I'm still here when I'm 20, you shoot me in the head.' I never, never, never wanted that as a kid." 

But absence makes the heart grow fonder: Fast forward to 2025, and Mauro Petraccone is marking his 40th year connected to his NDG institution Pasta Casareccia—first as an 11-year-old kid schlepping garbage on the weekends, then as a manager who swore he'd escape, and now as the sole owner who can't imagine being anywhere else.

Named after the Italian word for ‘homemade’. | Photograph courtesy of Mauro Petraccone
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