Four-minute read
Restaurants we lost at the Shore in 2024
Here are some Jersey Shore restaurants and food businesses that closed in 2024
Julia Molinari, a 20-year-old food influencer, highlights Italian Easter pie, pizza rustica, in her recent video.Pizza rustica, a traditional Italian-American Easter dish, is made with various Italian deli meats and cheeses.Molinari, whose family owns Molinari’s Restaurant in Neptune City, learned to cook from her parents and shares her Italian culinary heritage online.
Julia Molinari tosses a huge slab of prosciutto on a cutting board — this thing is slightly smaller than a backpack — and waves her left hand, accentuated by sky blue fingernails, through the air.
“Who doesn’t love Italian meat?” she exclaims. “Pizza rustica — because Easter is coming.”
Over the next one minute and 40 seconds, the 20-year-old from Little Silver speed-walks her prodigious social media audience — 2.6 million on TikTok, 1.4 million on Instagram — through the making of pizza rustica, also known as Easter pie. The Italian delicacy traces its roots to 17th-century Naples, where according to legend it was a reward for Catholics who observed 40 days of Lenten fasting and penance.
It remains a much-beloved Easter Sunday staple in traditional Italian-American households, but unlike most of the creations Molinari posts about, it is largely unknown by the general public. You could argue it’s the best-kept secret in the Italian culinary canon.
“I’ve never seen it on a restaurant menu around here,” Molinari told the Asbury Park Press. “It’s such a home-cooked meal. It’s not hard to make, but it does take a lot of love and effort.”
Growing up in an Italian restaurant
Love and effort, with more than a dash of sass, is how Molinari has attained prominence as a food influencer. She learned to cook at the hip of her parents, who own Molinari’s Restaurant in Neptune City.
“Growing up, my entire life was spent in the restaurant because my parents were always there,” she said. “That was my second home. There are pictures of me when I was 3 years old tossing pizza dough.”
Anyone who’s walked through the kitchen of a pizza restaurant feels the edgy personality bubbling like marinara sauce on a medium-low burner. Molinari channels that in her videos — with a megawatt smile.
“Growing up as an Italian and in an Italian pizzeria, the characters you run into, it kind of shapes your personality,” she said. “Everyone I know is so real, unfiltered, say-it-like-it-is. That’s why I love posting online, because I feel like I can be my authentic self.”
Molinari attended Red Bank Regional High School and is a sophomore at Rutgers University. When she’s not in the kitchen she might be in a dance studio; she takes classes at Project Dance in Eatontown and her aunt owns New York-based Dance Molinari. She’s also a passionate animal lover with four rescued cats in her household and yes, they eat prosciutto.
“My cats eat anything,” she said.
It always comes back to food.
The making of pizza rustica
In her digital creation empire, Molinari’s main focus is pizza. “Let’s Make a Pizza” is the title of her platforms. But lasagna might be closest to her heart.
“In my family, it’s the staple of every holiday,” she said. “Our tradition is making lasagna. The day before every holiday, my dad and I will be up until 2 in the morning making our pasta dough from scratch, rolling it out, letting it dry. We make everything ourselves. The tomato sauce, the mozzarella — everything in there besides the parmesan (cheese) is homemade. The No. 1 thing I take pride in is my lasagna.”
At Thanksgiving, there is turkey on the Molinari family’s table, “but lasagna is the star of the show,” Julia said.
On Easter, pizza rustica is the trusty sidekick.
“It’s such a comfort food,” Molinari said. “Who doesn’t love your common Italian deli meats? It goes well with everything — and it’s got everything you need.”
The ingredients in her recipe? The meats include mortadella, hot soppressata, prosciutto, and sometimes Italian sausage out of the casing. The cheeses are fresh mozzarella (handmade at the restaurant), pecorino romano and “basket cheese” — a fresh cow’s milk cheese that is sort of a cross between ricotta and mozzarella.
“It’s low-moisture,” Molinari said of the basket cheese. “You want to keep it as dry as possible since a lot of the things you’re putting in there have moisture.”
She cooks it in the restaurant’s wood-burning oven for a little over an hour.
“You want to cook it long enough so it’s not loose and falling apart,” she explained. “And the key is to let it chill afterward.”
On Easter she’ll serve it warm, but the beauty of pizza rustica is it’s just as good cold.
“Typically, for leftovers, I don’t heat it up,” Molinari said. “It’s delicious either way.”
Her video explaining all this posted on Thursday afternoon, to the great appreciation of her followers. Many of them are no doubt laying eyes on Easter pie for the first time. To those in the know, Molinari is performing a public service.
“Pizza rustica should be more popular because it is so delicious,” she said. “Everything in it is ingredients that everyone loves.”
Follow Julia Molinari on Instagram at www.instagram.com/juliahmolinari and on TikTok at www.tiktok.com/@iamjumo.
Jerry Carino is community columnist for the Asbury Park Press, focusing on the Jersey Shore’s interesting people, inspiring stories and pressing issues. Contact him at jcarino@gannettnj.com.