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Phantom Gourmet: Marco's In Peabody

PEABODY - Real Italian food is always best, when it's served by real Italians, and without a doubt, chef Marco Stefanelli is the real deal. Marco's Restaurant on Route One in Peabody is a humble 60 seat eatery that seems more like Naples than the North Shore.

"Everything is homemade. Everything is simple, but every single dish you're trying in our restaurant is excellent," declared Marco. "It's all Italian. We get all of our product imported from Italy, starting from extra virgin olive oil, sauce and we make everything here, including fresh pasta. We do dessert, pizza dough, everything. "

Fried calamari, sautéed mussels, spaghetti and meatballs. Even grilled ribeye steaks, creamy lobster ravioli, foamy cappucino and fluffy tiramisu. If you can't find something fresh and tasty coming out of this kitchen, you're not looking very hard. But the truth is, there's no need to look any further than Marco's 70-year-old family recipe for Rigatoni Bolognese.

"Our Bolognese is made with ground beef and ground pork. Believe it or not it's my mother's recipe that I've been making since I was little," Marco said, "and everybody loves it."

The sauce starts with that combination of beef and pork, then he adds some homemade tomato sauce, drops in a little pasta water to get the consistency just right, toss in some rigatoni pasta, sprinkle on some parmesan cheese, and plate it up with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

Some of the most popular choices at Marco's include the Fruitti di Mare, jam-packed with fresh clams, mussels, and shrimp, a velvety slice of Eggplant Parmesan, and an enormously delicious serving of Chicken Parm so big that it stretches beyond the plate.

"Every single customer when we put the dish on the table they go, 'Wow!' And they say wow first because they see how big it is, and after they taste it, how good it is as well," said Marco. "I want to be honest with you. I have a lot of customers who came here, they said it was the best Chicken Parmigiana they ever had."

The excellence is on full display when it comes to pizza as well. The oven was imported from Italy of course, and so are the ingredients, right down the double zero flour used in the dough. So, the crust gets a bit blistered around the edges when it cooks. The fresh mozzarella melts like a blanket over the classic Margherita pie. The zucchini and roasted peppers maintain their crispiness in the Vegetarian Pizza. Quattro Stagioni includes the traditional flavors of all four seasons.

"The Quattro Stagioni pizza includes prosciutto cotto, imported from Italy which is imported ham, also we have nice kalamata imported olives, fresh mushroom and we finish with artichokes.

"What I really like about our pizza is that you can eat the whole thing. We do 10 inches pizza, and after you finish it you feel like you want another one. It's so light, how we make our dough, it makes the difference."

Since the pizza seems so light, you might as well load up on dessert. You could try a nice slice of chocolatey Nutella Hazelnut Tart, a flaky Apricot Tart, that beautifully layered glass full of tiramisu, or even some mini croissants with a hot cup of Italian coffee. Just like everything at Marco's, it's all made by hand - by the hands of a real Italian cook.

"Every single day I come here, I enjoy cook, I enjoy seeing my customers happy," said Marco. "I think when you sit down at an Italian restaurant and you have great food and also great Italian music, I think you just need to close your eyes and make you feel like you really are in Italy."

Marco's is located at 47 Newbury Street in Peabody, and online at marcos-restaurant.com.

Watch Phantom Gourmet on Saturdays and Sundays at 10:30 and 11 a.m. on myTV38.

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