Luigi Viola was born in the Puglia region of Italy, in a small town called Alberona. In an effort to keep him out of trouble when he was growing up, his mother sent him to a neighbor's restaurant in neighboring Bari to work from age ten.
His passion for fresh, rustic Italian cuisine was cultivated at this early age and has been carried into every aspect of his cherished namesake restaurant Luigi’s in East Hanover, NJ.
Many of the unique, old world specialties offered at Luigi’s are recipes passed down thru generations of his family, and on Sundays Luigi can still be found rushing to his mother's house to enjoy homemade pasta, dried sausage, pickled eggplant, and sautéed wild chicory.
The past twenty-three years have seen plenty of changes in the world outside of Luigi’s , but once you step inside the doors, one taste of the carefully reproduced cuisine brought over from his cherished country and region will convince you that there are some things that require no improvement at all.