Staff prepared cornettos at Ciao!Angie.
Susan Braden
Ciao!Angie cafe at 51 Whitfield St., Guilford.
Courtesy Morgan Taylor
A cornetto, an Italian version of a croissant.
Courtesy Morgan Taylor
From left Andrea DiMatteo, Todd Taylor and his father-in-law Carmen Balzano.
Susan Braden
Inside Ciao!Angie cafe at 51 Whitfield St., Guilford.
Courtesy Morgan Taylor
Inside Ciao!Angie cafe at 51 Whitfield St., Guilford.
Courtesy Morgan Taylor
The covered patio area at Ciao!Angie cafe at 51 Whitfield St.
Courtesy Morgan Taylor
Ricotta cookie at Ciao!Angie in Guilford
Susan Braden
Ciao! Angie, a new Italian café on Whitfield Street in Guilford, brings old family recipes for ricotta cookies and warm polenta bowls to life in honor of the late family matriarch Angeline “Angie” Balzano.
Owner Todd Taylor said the café, which opened June 5, is named after his wife’s grandmother who he was very close to. He married into the family through his wife, Daniela Balzano.
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“She was a wonderful, very social lady, just loved to have people around and drink coffee and just engage in wonderful conversations,” Taylor said about Angie Balzano.
The bright café with new terrazzo marble flooring took several months to renovate at the shuttered Ballou’s Restaurant & Wine Bar, which closed in 2024 after 15 years in business.
“It’s an older building,” said Taylor, who also owns the building as part of his real estate business Water Street Properties LLC.
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When the wine bar closed, Taylor, who also owns Prime on Whitfield at 65 Whitfield St., said he was looking for someone to take over the vacant space at first.
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But then he talked it over with his wife and suggested, “‘Wouldn’t it be great if we could honor your grandmother Angela, with a restaurant? An Italian pastry coffee shop would do really well,’” Taylor said.
When they were thinking about opening the café – their second restaurant – they conferred with relatives, “So we sat around, the 35 of us in the Balzano family,” Taylor said.
Taylor brought in Andrea DiMatteo as chief operations officer of Water Street Restaurant Group, Taylor’s offshoot of his real estate business.
DiMatteo said he has been working in restaurants since he was 10 – starting at his family eatery, DiMatteo’s Pizza Restaurant in Hamden. He also oversees Prime.
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The café’s menu is true to the Balzano family’s Italian roots.
The ricotta cookies topped with a dollop of sweetened ricotta mixture, are adapted from a recipe from Angie’s daughter, “Aunt Lou,” who is Taylor’s wife’s aunt.
Italian pastries also include cornettos, which are Italian croissants, plain or filled with almond, chocolate, pistachio or vanilla cream and bomboloni, a fluffy donut-like sweet but without a hole.
The eatery also offers paninis served on focaccia, a split cornetto or brioche bread and salad for lunch. Hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
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The café serves a dozen espresso and coffee drinks and breakfast such as a warm polenta bowl with crispy prosciutto, sunny side up egg topped with shaved pecorino. Other specialty drinks are served.
DiMatteo said he was determined to find the right coffee beans for the café, like the coffee he enjoyed on his frequent visits to Italy when he had his first cup after getting off the plane in Rome.
“The doors opened, you smelled coffee at the airport. I want to feel like I just got off the plane, and I want it to bring me back to that moment when I was a child,” he said.
They get Sicilian style espresso beans from Saccuzzo Coffee Company in Newington.
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DiMatteo said, “If you close your eyes you’ll think you’re in Italy.”
Taylor, who started out in real estate before getting into the hospitality business, said he is pleased with his foray into restaurants.
“We have the benefit of owning two restaurants in a fabulous town. I’ve lived in Guilford for over 20 years and it’s just a fabulous community,” Taylor said.
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Dining and Cooking