When The St. Regis Deer Valley was completing their second phase of expansion in 2021, the owners also upped their culinary offerings by revamping RIME into a sit-down steakhouse. But they didn’t stop there: They also decided the hotel needed a more family-friendly option for guests and locals alike. That vision was the first idea for what became La Stellina, a New York-Italian style restaurant. “I’m from New York originally, I was born in the Bronx, and so I have a strong affinity for the Italian restaurant scene in the greater New York City area,” said Michael Zaccaro, chief operating officer of Falcon Investors, LLC and managing partner of The St. Regis Deer Valley. “The managing partner of the hotel overall, David Reis, he’s from the New York area as well. And so when we talked about what we wanted to do, we felt that an Italian concept would allow sort of a family-friendly setting at I’ll say family-friendly pricing and still be able to deliver the type of product and quality and service that are the components of a St. Regis.”With both having roots in the New York area, they were committed to bringing as much authenticity to the restaurant, both in design and in menu.“There were specific restaurants in New York, some in Manhattan and some in the Bronx, that were influences of what we wanted to do,” Zaccaro said.The hotel’s Consulting Chef Matthew Harris was heavily involved in the project, a decorated chef who has made his name in the Utah culinary scene for his restaurant Tupelo Park City, which builds on his Southern roots. In September, he and his team at Tupelo were invited to feature at the newest James Beard Foundation venue, Platform, in New York City. In December, Harris traveled back to New York to lead a cooking segment of the Today Show, his second time on the NBC television program.“That myself and other people get invited to these things like James Beard and the Today Show, it really shows, just as a whole, what we’re doing here in Utah, which is fantastic,” Harris said.Some of Harris’ first gigs in Park City were with The St. Regis, he said, working at the hotel for its first four seasons and staying connected with its owners.In 2019 he returned to be the hotel’s consulting chef and was heavily involved in the creation of La Stellina.“Matt Harris nationwide doesn’t have the name value of a John George or Wolfgang Puck or somebody like that, that normally you would see as an executive chef. But what he does have is the local knowledge in the local context, and he’s there all the time,” Zaccaro said. “So that is very much hands on, and that was what we were looking for when we brought Matt on into this role.”La Stellina at The St. Regis Deer Valley was inspired by a handful of New York-Italian restaurants, both in design and in menu. Credit: Jonathan Herrera/Park RecordWith Zaccaro’s personal direction, Harris was sent to hone his Italian cuisine at the source, both in New York City and in Italy.“I think it’s an important thing to go study the origins of all food,” said Harris. “Maggie and I took a trip (to Italy) for three weeks before we opened La Stellina, and we went to … grandmothers’ houses, apartments,” Harris said.For example, while in Bologna, he learned a traditional bolognese sauce, now incorporated in La Stellina’s beloved lasagna.Since Harris isn’t in the kitchen daily, he brought on Josephine Hansen as his chef de cuisine.“Josephine was a chef that was in Tupelo for many years. She was looking for a little bit of a change, to change cuisines and expand her horizons a little bit, and the opportunity to become the chef de cuisine at La Stellina came about,” Harris said.Together, the two chefs have collaborated to perfect many of their dishes, most recently switching to a winter menu that blends their traditional Italian fare with more seasonal flavors and hearty dishes to combat the chill. This menu overhaul for the season is normal at The St. Regis Deer Valley restaurant, Harris said, with heavy changes for the winter and summer seasons and slight tweaks in fall and spring.With Hansen’s help since the opening, Harris and La Stellina have found their own unique formula for classic dishes, such as a gnocchi that would hold up at the hotel’s high altitude and a cannoli sampling, which lives permanently on the menu.Harris gave Hansen the credit for the gnocchi, a potato-based pasta that is listed as a starter plate and is adjusted seasonally.“Gnocchi is one of those fickle things — there’s 1,000 ways to do gnocchi. So we went to the kitchen, and we really did the research, and we tasted and tasted and tasted many variations and many recipes of it. And she came up with that one with just some subtle tweaks, a little more egg yolk and a little more potato than normal,” Harris said.The result is a pillowy bite, sauteed in butter to a slight crisp on one side to give the simple pasta more dimension through texture. With the gnocchi dialed in as the base, the rest of the dish can adjust around it. For the winter, it is served in a light cream sauce with sage, butternut squash, brussels sprouts and parmesan.Mushrooms are another ingredient they use heavily in the winter months, sourcing theirs from local producers in Salt Lake. On the menu now is a Roasted Local Mushroom pizza, which showcases the mushrooms, adorned with prosciutto, pecorino, chilli and for added heartiness, an egg cracked in the middle, baked with a still-runny yolk that balances the saltiness.Their other pizzas lean toward the classics, Harris said, like their “Classico” tomato sauce, basil and mozzarella pie and the “Spicy sausage & peppers” accompanied with roasted garlic and ricotta. Some, like the “White clam pizza” uses fresh clams and oregano for unique flavors — a go-to order whenever Zaccaro is in town.“There’s one spot in Connecticut that is famous nationwide for their white clam pizzas. And so we wanted to sort of duplicate that, maybe as an homage to New Haven and New Haven Connecticut pizza,” Zaccaro said.Another authentic inclusion on their menu, a nod to true New Yorkers, is fresh pasta dishes with a squid ink pasta and a cavatelli.“Those two pastas come from Borgatti’s on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, and for people who know it, especially in the New York area, for many, it’s considered the best pasta source in the entire country,” Zaccaro said. “It brings back a little bit of home, having the pastas from Borgatti’s.”Even more personal than Borgatti’s pasta for Zaccaro is the Lou’s Chicken Scarpariello on the menu.“That is actually named after my dad, who passed away during COVID. It was from one of the restaurants that was inspirational to what we wanted La Stellina to be,” Zaccaro said. “We would go there with my parents, and it was the type of restaurant that had a menu that you had to know about. … And (my dad) would sit down, and when the waiter came over, with a wave of his hand he would announce he would have the Chicken Scarpariello. So Matt actually studied that dish from that restaurant to duplicate it and put it on the menu.” A hands-down guest favorite at La Stellina is their lasagna, an original recipe, Harris said. Unlike a traditional lasagna, theirs is rolled instead of stacked.The lasagna at La Stellina is one of their most popular dishes — rolled instead of layered, made with a traditional bolognese sauce and topped with melted cheese. Credit: Jonathan Herrera/Park Record“We thought about what makes the lasagna the best, and it’s the crispy bits. OK? How do you get the crispy bits without being at the corner? So we took and we rolled it a different way, and we, we came up with that, with their appropriate amount of sauce, where it bakes properly in the oven and it gets all the cheesy bits with the bolognese,” Harris said.From the handmade pasta sheets to the bolognese sauce, all under a thick layer of melted cheese, there’s a lot of care put into the dish, Harris said.Since opening, Zaccaro said that La Stellina has been everything they’d hoped it would be, a place for families to enjoy a meal together.“It’s always a little bit heartwarming to see, especially early evening, half of the tables, or two thirds of the tables with families and young children,” he said. La Stellina is open daily from 4:30-9 p.m., and reservations can be made on their website, srdvdining.com/la-stellina-deer-valley-utah-italian-restaurant. “Come in, have a seat, relax. Come in with a family, come in with a date night. It’s a very approachable restaurant. You can eat light. You can eat hardy. We’ve got a little bit for everybody there,” said Harris.The post La Stellina brings a taste of owners’ New York-Italian home to this resort town appeared first on Park Record.