AMHERSTBURG — After being away on sort of a year-long adventure, chef Riccardo Maltese is going home.
Riccardo's returns 'home' where it all began in Amherstburg
Mary Caton
Returning home. This file photo from Dec. 16, 2011, shows the exterior of Riccardo's Italian Restaurant in Amherstburg at its former (and new) location on Dalhousie Street.
AMHERSTBURG — After being away on sort of a year-long adventure, chef Riccardo Maltese is going home.
A year after relocating his popular Italian restaurant to Sandwich Street in Amherstburg, the owner/chef is preparing to re-open at his former riverfront location on Dalhousie Street.
“It’s coming back home for me,” Maltese said Saturday as he prepared his beloved space in the old Amherstburg Echo building for a reopening of Riccardo’s Italian Restaurant, hopefully by next weekend.
“When the opportunity to come back happened I had to take that opportunity. This, for me, is where it all started in 2007.”
Maltese left the Echo building in the fall of 2016 when an out-of-town owner had plans to demolish the historic structure in favour of condominiums.
When the building changed hands again last fall, the new owners changed direction. Maltese said one of the owners, Amherstburg resident Mark Kurzak, approached him about coming back.
“I couldn’t believe it, I was shocked,” Maltese said of the unexpected chance to get back to a scenic waterfront setting.
The owners have already redone the restaurant’s brick patio.
Inside, the footprint will look much like it did before.
“It’s still an open kitchen so people can see me cook,” Maltese said.
Maltese had no patio area on Sandwich Street where the corner building formerly housed a Montessori school and a dress shop.
“I’m not knocking the other location because it kept me in town,” he said. “But some people didn’t like that location and they let me know it.”
The Sandwich Street building, also in the downtown, is now available for sale or lease.
Maltese hopes to get all the necessary inspections done this coming week so he can open on Dalhousie Street next weekend.
“This location for me is more than just a workplace,” he said. “This is sentimental.”
In this Dec. 16, 2011, file photo, chef Riccardo Maltese stirs the pot at his Amherstburg restaurant’s former waterfront home. After a year’s absence, Riccardo’s Italian Restaurant is now returning to that location.
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