SPQR Sister Mattina Is an All-Day Restaurant For a New Era
This month, Matthew Accarrino and his crew opened up the doors to Mattina, the shiny, new restaurant around the corner from his flagship SPQR.
“The genesis of opening Mattina was that it’s 25 seconds from SPQR,” says Accarrino. “It gave me a comfort level of going between two restaurants.”
“It’s a neighborhood restaurant. There’s so much energy already.”
Set in the former Out the Door space on Bush, Mattina is the kind of restaurant that tries to provide a little bit of everything for everyone in the area — with top-notch food to overdeliver on that premise. Here’s what you need to know.
1. It’s a true all-day affair.
Mattina has been continuing to expand its services since opening earlier this month, growing from coffee and housemade pastries starting at 8 a.m. to an all-day menu until 3 p.m. to eventual dinner service slated to begin on May 13. (Reservations and walk-ins are accepted for lunch and dinner.)
The goal, says Accarrino, is to create an everyday restaurant — the kind of place you can sit with your dog outside, have a coffee after a bike ride, make a Resy for brunch, pop in for takeout, or have a happy hour drink.
“The whole idea was to make the restaurant versatile,” says Accarrino.
2. Don’t miss the biscuits.
For the most part, Mattina features the same menu straight through the day, albeit with pastries in the morning and daily specials for dinner.
In the earlygoing, the biscuits have already become a signature. It’s a fairly simple recipe — the team works the butter in by hand and then grills them on the charcoal grill. There are a few iterations on the menu, stuffed with everything from prosciutto and cheese (add an egg!) to housemade jam to chicken curry salad.
3. And there’s pasta, of course.
As the day progresses, look for more Cal-Ital dishes to wade into the fray, including salads, grilled proteins, and of course, pasta. Compared to the famous composed pasta dishes around the corner at SPQR, the offerings here are simpler, like tagliatelle with marsala mushrooms or ricotta-filled agnolotti paired with favas, peas, and all kind of green spring goodness.
4. Mattina is heeding pandemic lessons.
So much about Mattina — rolling out slowly, staggered service expansion, lots of entry points — is a reflection of the lessons the industry has learned over the pandemic, says Accarrino.
“Restaurants have gone through a big transition. Coming out of the challenges of the last few years, we learned that you have to accomplish what you can, and just be realistic and human,” he says. “We didn’t approach things that way three or four years ago.”
5. Oh, and the SPQR doughnuts are staying put.
Speaking of pandemic lessons, one of the bright spots around Fillmore Street in the last few years has been SPQR’s weekend offerings Accarrino’s Coffee & Doughnuts (Saturday and Sunday) and Accarrino’s Fried Chicken (Sunday). The good news is that both are staying at SPQR, even with Mattina’s debut.
