The Menu at Cafiero's

During my years-long obsession with Cafiero's—the family-owned Italian restaurant that was a President Street legend back in the day, frequented by mobsters and judges and plenty of regular folk—I have grown accustomed to the fact that it left behind no paper trail. Private and old fashioned to a fault, Cafiero's had no matchbooks or napkins with its name on it, placed no ads, did no interviews. And there was no menu! I've been told a hundred times by people who actually went there. There was no menu! The waiter told you what was available and it could change every day. [CORRECTION: A reader write in to say: "Cafieros definitely did have a menu. It was a simply typed piece of white paper enclosed in plastic, listing the dish and the price. No description, just “Ravioli….$1.10”"

However, through various remembrances I've collected over the years, I think I am now able to reconstruct a reasonable facsimile of a typical evening's menu at Cafiero's. Or at least part of one. The Cafieros—owner Sharkey, his wife Anna, and his brother Frank, who was chef—were from Naples and served Neapolitan dishes. They served simple food, but well-made. And if you visited, here were some of the things you could order:

Appetizers

Potato Croquettes

Clams Oreganata ($1.50)

Sandwiches

Meatball, sausage, veal heros

Primi

Rigatoni

Cheese Ravioli ($1.10)

Secondi

Charcoal Broiled Veal Spedini

Vinegar Peppers over Grilled Pork Chop

Shrimp Marinara

Dolci

Tortoni

Spumoni

Vino

The house wine was a California Red from Cucomonga Valley

I learned recently from a reader that the storefront was blue. So we can safely surmise that the odd, cobalt blue panels that remain on the building are original. (See below.)