A Taste of Tradition
The Marinuzzis feed their customers like family
By Jennifer Kervin
Walking into 7 Numbers at 307 Danforth Avenue is like walking into “what an Italian basement would’ve looked like in the ’50s, ’60s, or ’70s,” says owner Vito Marinuzzi. “We try and make it like eating at someone’s house.” The Italian eatery’s vibe is cozy and eclectic. The small dining room is candlelit, the tin ceiling glowing with a rustic ambiance.Mismatched chairs line the tables. Vinyl records and sleeves decorate the walls, and an accordion sits on an upper-corner shelf. A four-paneled chalkboard on the wall announces the menu.
A welcoming neighbourhood
The family learned the business working in a cousin’s restaurant for several years. Eventually, they parted ways happily and opened their first restaurant, deriving the name 7 Numbers from the seven-digit business number for their establishment. And while the 7 Numbers on the Danforth only opened about four years ago, Vito says the neighbourhood has been very receptive. “They like supporting the individual little mom and pop [places],” he observes.
From mother, to son
Traditional Southern-Italian cuisine is the soul of the 7 Numbers menu, rooted in the birthplace of the Marinuzzi matriarch, Rosa, who can be found in the kitchen of the Eglinton location. Originally from Bari, on the southeast Adriatic coast of Italy, she arrived in Canada in 1967. Rosa enthusiastically professes her love of cooking (“Everything I cook, I love”), her wish for customers to enjoy delicious, quality meals (“No junk food!”), and her goal of making everyone feel like part of the family. As a girl, her mother taught her and her sister how to cook, a skill she in turn passed down to her son Tony, who brings these inherited Southern-Italian dishes and cooking styles to the kitchen at the Danforth location.
“We try our best to keep to the roots”
“Basically, everything from Southern Italy is ‘from the land,’” Tony explains. “No butter, all olive-oil based…everything is very simple. Very few dishes have more than five ingredients….We try our best to keep to the roots.” And while the nature of the menu doesn’t change, menu options are always in rotation. The menu is even printed on a sheet of paper to allow for the sometimes nightly dish changes.
Aside from lessons in slicing and dicing, Rosa has also taught her sons to stick to their guns.
Vito explains, “If the trend is to use [a certain ingredient], she doesn’t care. If people say our food is too rich in tomato sauce, or we use too much olive oil, she doesn’t really care…The way she does things, by some chefs’ standards, is not the right way. But people eat our food, and it works. So it might not be right by the textbook method, but it works.”
A menu filled with tradition
The Marinuzzi family, drawing from the Italian tradition of eating smaller portions from many dishes, is passing down to diners a menu with the traditional antipasti (an appetizer), primi (generally a pasta dish), secondi (the main course), contorno (a side dish, generally vegetables) and dolce (dessert). They encourage their customers to order from each section in the traditional way—the way their family always has.
All in the Family
When asked about working alongside family, both Vito and Tony say that, while there are ups and downs to every business, working with family is great. “We just try not to take ourselves too seriously, and try to have fun. We’ve built a place that we would eat at,” Vito says. “A restaurant is not a business or a job, or a career,” he continues. “It’s totally a lifestyle. Your family, your wife, your kids, your mother, your brother, and whoever else in your life is part of that…You hope that [your children] do the same thing.” And according to Rosa, working with her family is “the best thing in my life.”
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