Pasta-centric eatery Aunt Jake's to open in Huntington
At Aunt Jake's in Manhattan (and soon to be in Huntington) fresh pasta is on the menu, and customers can learn to make it during cooking classes. Credit: Carmine DiGiovanni
A town well served by pasta, Huntington is about to get another helping. Aunt Jake’s, a New York City spot that specializes in fresh pasta, is in the final stages of converting Leilu (which closed last year) into a satellite location. Owner Nick Boccio said he started negotiating the lease in late 2024 and hopes to be open in early 2026.
Boccio, a hospitality veteran (and Hauppauge native), opened Aunt Jake’s in Little Italy in 2015 as a full-service, homestyle restaurant, eventually expanding to Greenwich Village and, in 2020, the Upper East Side. By 2023, the two downtown restaurants had closed and the pandemic had forced his team to rethink their business plan. "In addition to value," he said, "we wanted to offer something experiential. That’s how the cooking classes started."
Although the Manhattan restaurant will seat walk-ins for dinner, most customers are there for a 2½-3-hour "pasta experience" which consists of a hands-on class followed by a meal that includes fresh pasta — but not the pasta patrons make themselves. Instead, they take home the fruits of their labor, plus a ball of dough so they can practice in their own kitchens.
This has proved to be a winning strategy in Manhattan, where corporate team-building and private parties keep the classroom full all week long. Boccio, who moved back to Suffolk County in 2022, suspects that in Huntington there may be more of a demand for a traditional restaurant with pasta classes offered on weekends. He’s prepared to let his future customers determine the exact mix.
The menu, however, will hew closely to the Manhattan original. Chef-partner Carmine DiGiovanni starts the proceedings with classics such as Caesar salad, fried calamari, meatballs plus Champagne mussels and hot-honey-drizzled burrata.
Pastas (in the low $20s) are a mix-and-match affair: Choose among 10 shapes (such as rigatoni, tagliatelle, squid-ink bucatini, spiralized butternut squash, gluten-free rigati) and 10 sauces (marinara, alla vodka, chicken Bolognese, Sunday sauce, nut-free pesto). Mains (in the low $30s) include chicken and eggplant Parms, shrimp scampi and butternut squash risotto.
Aunt Jake’s will be at 10 New St., Huntington.
