A wine bar. Sort of.
This was mostly Louie’s idea. We thought Nyack could use a sort of wine bar but one that has really good food and maybe Nargansett if you just want a regular beer. but the main attraction is wine and delicious craft cocktails.
We carefully source all our food and wines. Sometimes that means heritage American pork or the carefully selected spices for sausage we grind by hand in-house or grains from Wild Hive Farms in Chef Eric’s bread or pouring wine from biodynamic vineyards in Austria or California.
Whatever it is, the ingredients and intention make all the difference.
A place to eat and drink.
Who we are
Like we said, this was Louie’s idea. And it’s next door to DPNB Pasta and Provisions, so Louie’s Next Door. But maybe you are wondering, “Who is Louie?” Louiedell Gargantiel Scotto and Tony Scotto are the founders of DPNB. From here on out, we’ll just call them Louie and Chef T, as we do around the shop.
Our story starts and ends in Nyack.
Chef T’s culinary skills have taken him around the world, but he’s landed in Nyack, where he grew up. It’s also where, in high school, he first met Louie, who was born in the Philippines but raised in Valley Cottage, and would become his wife, the mother of their child Kai, and his partner in DPNB and LND. Nyack is also where Chef T began his career in kitchens, working the line in the locally acclaimed Hudson House of Nyack while attending the Institute of Culinary Education in NYC.
From there, he wandered further afield, honing his craft at Lupa Osteria Romana in the West Village, where he first worked with James Beard award-winning Chef Mark Ladner, who would become a mentor. Chef T worked magic with flour and water (and some cheese and eggs, of course), becoming Lead Pasta Chef at Lupa before following Chef Ladner to Del Posto, where he ran the pasta department and eventually became Chef de Cuisine. During this time, Del Posto received a 4-star review in the New York Times, a Michelin star, and a James Beard Award.
Sojourns working as Executive Sous Chef at Chef Michael White’s Campagna at The Bedford Post Inn, and then a move to Milan, Italy as Executive Chef opening Ricci with Joe Bastianich followed. It was Italy where the seeds for what would become Louie’s Next Door were first sown, though its creators didn’t know it yet. But while Chef T was in the kitchen, Louie herself was living something of la dolce vita, exploring the gastronomic and oenological delights of Milan. Wine bars abounded, and from train station platforms to more formal settings, aperitivo culture and a certain brand of warm hospitality were everywhere. This spirit would go on to inspire the creation of Louie’s Next Door, even if there was nothing to be next door to yet.
Louie and Chef T left Milan for the comparatively sleepy hamlet of Hudson, New York, where a food scene full of New York City expats was taking shape a couple of hours north of the City. There, Chef T worked as Executive Chef for James Beard Award-winning Chef Zakary Pelaccio at Fish & Game.
Homecoming
Things came full circle when Louie and Chef T returned to their hometown, Nyack, and brought the DPNB Pasta & Provisions concept to life. Fresh, handmade pastas could be ordered from the shop to cook at home, a roster of a few fresh and seasonal prepared dishes (“Pasta” and “Not Pasta”) could be eaten in-house (with a carefully selected list of wines to accompany them) or ordered to-go. It quickly became a local favorite, and chefs in the area and in the City ordered the pastas to serve at their own restaurants.
When the space next door became available, those aperitivo bars and sandwich stalls from Milan came to mind, and Louie’s Next Door was born (just a couple of years after Kai). It would be welcoming, with a carefully curated wine list and food that was straightforward but never simple to perfectly accompany what’s in the glasses. The opening menu featured autobiographical easter eggs from throughout Chef’s career: a squid dish he first prepared at Lupa that clarified to him just how a couple of simple ingredients could be transformed with the right technique and touch; a smoked trout from Fish & Game; and heritage American ham and mango, a play on prosciutto-wrapped melon and Chef T’s nod to his Italian-American-Filipino family and the flatbread sandwhiches from Milan that inspired our panuozzos.
