Tag Archives: italian-cuisine

Teresa’s is a Well-Olive-Oiled Machine

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By Andres Martinez

Pizza ovens rumble and servers haul orders back and forth while a cloud of whole-wheat flour engulfs the tables, staining employees’ and customers’ clothes with a chalky finish. Hidden in busy Palmer Square, Teresa’s sits in an alcove that draws in consumers with its quaint patio area and hospitable service, emanating a simplicity so often forgotten in today’s dining and food culture.

Teresa Azario and her husband Raul Momo’s desire for a romantic and practical cafe led to Teresa’s inception. Teresa’s serves as an intimate space for their customers and a bridge to share their culinary vision of fresh Mediterranean dishes. Teresa’s has been serving the Princeton community since 1987, opening first on Nassau Street before relocating to its current home in Palmer Square.

In the present day, Azario’s grandson, Luke Momo, has taken up the mantle of the Theresa’s brand. The restaurant operates as a subsidiary of the Terra Momo Restaurant Group, an organization founded by the family that owns several other restaurants, including Mediterra, Eno Terra and the Terra Momo Bread Company. 

Momo stresses that Teresa’s love for ambiance and giving guests a great meal helps them “build those meaningful life moments.” He emphasizes the efforts put into maintaining a cordial, welcoming ecosystem and a high standard of etiquette among all staff. The clean, modern pizzeria aesthetic is dressed up in a slightly chic style with 1960s Hollywood actresses lining the walls, their faces ranging from stoic to playful. Sparse, art new deco Italian graphic advertisements compete for the space as well, but cannot outshine the sheer radiance of Sophia Loren’s glistening cheekbones. Though the shoddy, plastic tomatoes that lined the table are a bit tacky, the overall ambiance (supported by the gentle sounds of salsa music like El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico and Marc Anthony) kept visitor expectations as optimistic as can be.

Being an Italian restaurant, Teresa’s is cursed with the affliction of the mandatory margherita pizza, a fixture on the menu of any successful Italian red-sauce joint. Yet servers delivered a dish that was earthy and fresh, as if each ingredient was grown in fertile volcanic soil, bringing its petrichor with it. Also fresh were the restaurant’s two celebrated pasta dishes: balsamico and lumache alla vodka. The former is a fusion of grilled chicken, balsamic vinegar and rigatoni, the product of a chef’s experiments, while the latter consists of the pancetta, lumache and melty grana that make up Teresa’s unique take on vodka sauce. 

The service and hospitality, though not tailored to any single customer’s specifications, had the warmth of a mom-and-pop restaurant with a staff dynamic pulled from sitcoms, featuring chatty, bright-eyed servers and a resolute executive chef barking orders. This dynamic is crucial to keeping Teresa’s running. 

“You actually want to serve everyone on your crew so they feel like you’re not telling them what to do,” Momo said. “You want to be in there with them and have a lot of empathy for their situation.” Though not revolutionary, it is an effective strategy, delivered with enough sincerity and commitment over the years to grow this once small family-owned pizzeria into a Princetonian staple, employing and keeping far more staff than Teresa could ever have imagined. 

In an increasingly trend-focused dining culture, Teresa’s is a local legend. Its simplicity comes with trade-offs: It doesn’t try to innovate in the ways of HeyTea or La La Land Café, but by veering away from the latest niche pick and refining its widely loved classics, the restaurant permits chefs to dabble in Mediterranean twists. 

Resisting the temptation to trendiness is a highlight of Teresa’s. It demonstrates cognizance of their brand and customer base. Their reach is primarily local, and they understand their position in the Princeton dining ecosystem. Teresa’s is a local centerpiece, stringent not about presentation, speediness or exquisite cuisine, but rather the beauty of their craft, inside and outside the kitchen.

At Teresa’s, the Tomato Doesn’t Fall Far From the Vine

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By Aeryn Bautista

Tale padre, tale figlio.

This is Italy’s version of “like father, like son,” a saying that Luke Momo lives by. As the leader of Teresa’s Pizza and Wine Bar, a trattoria nestled in the heart of Princeton, New Jersey, Momo carries on his grandmother’s legacy of serving Italian cuisine at a place that welcomes newcomers and keeps regulars coming back. 

“It is definitely an honor and a privilege, something I enjoy a lot,” Momo said. “I’m so grateful for the staff — incredible staff — we have to execute this vision.”

In the mid 1970s, Teresa Azario and her husband, Raul Momo, established the first Teresa’s Caffé in New York. Their children Raoul, Carlo, Anthony, Caroline and Venanzio, who represent the five spoons in the business logo, expanded it in the following decades to locations throughout New Jersey. 

Luke, Raoul’s son, grew up eating his grandmother’s traditional Italian dishes and visiting diverse eateries alongside his father. These experiences became second nature to him. “It’s sort of like… how the goldfish doesn’t know that they’re in water,” he said, referring to his relationship with food. “It was just so saturated within my experience.”

Teresa’s serves beloved entrées, including margherita pizza, balsamico pasta and shell-shaped lumache alla vodka. At the Palmer Square location, photos of Italian celebrities, such as actress Sophia Loren and director Federico Fellini, line the cool white walls. 

Teresa’s black and white portrait joins them, greeting customers as soon as they enter.

“She has a very big personality,” Momo said. “So we thought it would be a funny joke to put her with all these other movie stars.”

Momo speaks as fondly about his grandmother as he does the trattoria he leads. Although he once pursued filmmaking, he ultimately took up the family restaurant mantle.

Luke shares his grandmother’s dedication to delivering exceptional service to his community and beyond. He encourages his management team to read Danny Meyer’s Setting the Table, a book that emphasizes how cordiality gives way to a thriving restaurant.

“Hospitality is the feeling that you have — a warm and welcome feeling in a restaurant,” he said. “This is the experience we try to give people from the time they walk in to the time that they leave.”

Along with marketing, monitoring customer preferences through food-tasting events and keeping track of finances, Momo is responsible for conducting the “orchestra” of customers and staff in his diner, ensuring that “everyone’s on the same note at the same moment.”

He takes his position as seriously as the king of Ithaca did in The Odyssey.

“The whole thing that Odysseus goes through — I was like, that’s actually somewhat like being a leader,” he said. “Like [director Christopher Nolan] actually accurately showed you really care about all the people who work for you and you’re trying to make sure they’re all doing well.”

Momo’s privy to movies like Nolan’s every day, he argues. They happen “here in this space.” 

“Teresa’s is a great spot for the communal aspect,” he said. “We have the bar — people can come to socialize there, they come to the tables, they bring their friends and family and there’s this magic moment that happens when you seek the whole dining room and you see all these little worlds. They are all little islands unto themselves.”

The kitchen tells its own tale. At its head is Terrance Strong, Teresa’s executive chef. 

“It doesn’t have to be glamorous, but whatever it is, it needs to be consistent,” Strong said. “Because that’s what people are coming here for. They’re coming here for the food.”

Strong conducts a different song than Momo’s, adjusting the tune depending on his staff’s needs. Having worked at Teresa’s for almost three decades, he considers the team a second family.

“You know the old story of [how] you’ve never worked a day in your life, right?” he said, reminiscing on his 28-year career. 

Strong puts honesty, accountability and flexibility at the forefront of his work. From clocking in at 7 a.m. to check equipment and start the dough — the “lifeblood” of the pizzas — to clocking out after a long day of cooking, Strong fosters a positive environment for his junior chefs and customers.

“We’re always trying to put our footprint or fingerprint on the restaurant that we’re currently in,” Strong said. “And we’re always trying to make it better.”

Teresa’s encourages the community to continue enjoying its Italian cuisine while creating their own stories — spending time with lovers, strangers and everyone in between.

“We can’t be great without the greatness of others,” Momo said. “I really think the love and care that our people show for each other, hopefully that speaks to itself and the love that Teresa herself has for giving people good food and a place to enjoy themselves and have a nice time and build those meaningful life moments, meaningful memories.”