Dante Boccuzzi to Open Italian Restaurant in Former Goma Space Downtown

Five years after opening his Japanese restaurant Goma, Dante Boccuzzi decided that it was time for a change. In August, the chef abruptly closed the doors to the East 4th Street venue with little notice or explanation.

“I just think it was time to rebrand and rethink things,” Boccuzzi now says. “That restaurant model is higher in labor costs. And now there are so many more sushi restaurants opening up. It makes it harder to find staff and the customers have a lot more choices.”

With personal budgets pinched, food costs soaring and labor struggles still an everyday issue, restaurant owners increasingly are searching for ways to simplify their operations. For Boccuzzi, that means ditching the labor- and ingredient-intensive sushi concept and landing on something more accessible.

“I’ve been thinking about Italian for a while,” he says. “I’m going for more of a red sauce concept. Nothing fine-dining; something that is casual and approachable for everybody. We get a wide variety of customers depending on the events and what’s going on down there.”

In 2011, Boccuzzi launched D.C. Pasta Co. in Strongsville, a concept that had a great run until Covid wiped it out. The chef says that that restaurant serves as a good starting point for what he hopes to achieve at Casa Nostra, which will take the place of Goma.

Diners can look forward to a wide variety of pastas, sauces, salads and entrees. As he did at D.C., Boccuzzi will make all pastas in house, both extruded and rolled varieties such as tortellini, pappardelle, bucatini and cavatelli. Meatballs – here called polpette – are made with a choice of beef, pork, lamb, turkey or ricotta. Starters might include Tuscan bean soup, arancini, polenta and steamed mussels. There will be a few entrees such as chicken parm, fish and steak.

Boccuzzi says that the space will under go some cosmetic changes before opening sometime this winter.

“No extreme structural changes, but it will feel like a different space,” he says.

The goal is to close off part of the open kitchen, soften and warm up the room, and give it an Italian feel. The large central sushi bar will become the main bar and, likely, the dessert station.

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