Gaetano’s Ristorante Owner’s Recent Travels to Sicily Inspire New Authentic Recipes for 20th Anniversary Menu

With travel prices running high this summer, Las Vegas Valley diners need look no further than Gaetano’s Ristorante at 10271 S. Eastern Ave. to enjoy an authentic Italian dining experience only a few miles from home.

Now, that experience can be even more memorable with a new Gaetano’s menu, launching June 1, which includes plenty of inspiration from the owner’s recent visit to Italy. 

After 20 years of serving Henderson, Gaetano’s owner Nick Palmeri chose to give his menu a summer facelift. He looked to his family roots to do so. On a recent trip to Sicily, the restaurateur visited the family-run proprietors who source many of the fresh ingredients already found in his family’s award-winning Italian dishes. One visit was to the anchovy facility and olive oil grove/production site from which he sources his extra virgin olive oil and Castelvetrano olives.  

“Speaking to the families who have made these products for many generations and to see the raw material become the final product gave me goosebumps,” Palmeri recalled. “I thought ‘I want to share the stories of the producers and show how their tremendous quality makes our recipes so unique and authentic.’” 

Palmeri also purchased a bronze-died pasta extruder to bring a new level of quality and Italian authenticity to his award-winning homemade pasta recipes. It took two weeks to dial in the perfect recipe, a mixture of Italian and American semolina flour, he said. 

“In Italy I asked every restaurant what they do with their pasta and 100% of them used bronze-died pastas. What makes bronze-died pastas so special is that they have a coarse texture that holds sauce better,” he noted. 

The new Gaetano’s menu features 95 percent of Gaetano’s pastas made in house, and many new recipes, wines and cocktails, along with long-time classics locals have come to love through the years. Some of the new recipes include: 

• Sicilian Arugula Salad: Fresh salad with shaved fennel, blood orange segments, heirloom tomatoes and blood orange citrus dressing 
• Cacio e Pepe: A traditional Roman dish with homemade egg noodle spaghetti with black pepper and pecorino Romano cheese 
• Orecchiette alla Calabrese: Round shaped pasta sauteed with olive oil, garlic, broccoli rabe, calabrese sausage, and Calabrian chili paste 
• Pappardelle alla Bolognese: Homemade wide egg noodle pasta served with our homemade Bolognese meat sauce 
• Sicilian Old Fashioned: Signature cocktail made with bourbon, Amaro Averna, and Cocktail & Son’s spiced demerara syrup 

After Palmeri’s father (Gaetano) passed away three years ago, the restaurateur dug deeper into his Italian roots to find new menu inspiration. Like his father, he has a passion for food, wine and cocktails. His travels to Italy were not only to re-discover his ancestral roots but to understand the gastronomic culture and bring it back to Henderson, where you can feel like you are in Italy one bite at a time at his restaurant. 

For more information about Gaetano’s Ristorante, visit gaetanoslasvegas.com or call 702-361-1661. 

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