Less than 24 hours before Tambellini & Co.’s May 8 grand opening, the Brookline sandwich shop was a flurry of activity. Co-owner Michael Tambellini hauled a huge stock pot of marinara — at least five gallons, his fiancée and co-owner Trista Fulton estimated — and pulled pans of house-made mozzarella out of the refrigerator. He was midway through prepping a second batch of 150 meatballs using a Tambellini family recipe kept secret for three generations.
Working the line, Fulton assembled chicken parm paninis and stacked mozzarella and meatballs onto Mediterra Bakehouse bread for grinders — or hot subs — which Tambellini calls “the star” of the menu.
“I love food, and it’s been my whole life,” Tambellini said. “I love sharing my passion with everyone who comes in. What can I say? We’re people people.”
For generations of Pittsburghers, the Tambellini name is synonymous with Italian dining. The family, numbering 80 some relatives in the area, has operated restaurants across the region since the 1930s, beginning with the original East Carson Street location on Pittsburgh’s South Side. Known for a highbrow approach to traditional Italian, seven Tambellini restaurants once stretched from Mount Washington to Downtown.
The last of those restaurants, Joseph Tambellini Restaurant in Highland Park, helmed by Michael Tambellini’s uncle, closed in February.
Now, Tambellini & Co. will stand as the region’s only brick-and-mortar Tambellini restaurant. Rather than continue the family’s fine dining tradition, Tambellini and Fulton envisioned something more community-focused: an artisan Italian sandwich shop with house-made ingredients and approachable prices.
Their compact menu of panini ($12-16), antipasto ($7-15), and desserts ($2-8) — including biscotti made from Tambellini’s great-aunt Florence’s recipe — blends the restaurant’s traditional Italian roots with a more modern sensibility.
“We want to feed the working class, the everyday people,” Fulton said. “We want to be that staple here in Brookline and hopefully other places eventually, too.”
That philosophy is reflected in the restaurant’s tagline: “A True Trattoria Italiana Experience.”
In Italy, a trattoria is a casual, family-run restaurant known for serving a hearty lunch or early dinner at more modest prices, often without liquor. Another nod to the traditional trattoria is Tambellini & Co.’s kids’ menu, featuring half-sized meatball and mozzarella sliders ($8). Fulton and Tambellini also developed a special deep purple “butterfly pea” lemonade made with blue matcha simple syrup.
Leaning into the family-friendliness, the shop will soon debut a new cartoon mascot and merch. Longtime character Mario Meaty — a mustachioed meatball who “looks just like Michael,” Fulton joked — will be joined by Maria Mozzarella, inspired by Fulton and Tambellini’s upcoming wedding.
“Maria Mozzarella is going to marry Mario Meaty. And that’s going to be our (wedding) announcement,” Fulton said.
Tambellini emphasized that while the sandwich shop bears the family name, the “and Co.” is just as vital to its identity.
“It’s not just Tambellini’s,” he said. “It’s really been a team effort, and without the people by our side, we wouldn’t be where we are.”
That began when Tambellini met Fulton three years ago on the summer solstice (the couple will wed on their third anniversary on June 21).
Before the covid-19 pandemic, Tambellini said he “tried getting out of the restaurant industry,” taking a data processing job before the company eventually consolidated. He later returned to The Wheelhouse at Rivers Casino, where he met Fulton through a mutual friend.
“We started talking about food and an hour went by,” Tambellini remembered. “The next day, we ran into each other again. It was love at first sight.”
Fulton brought years of restaurant experience of her own. She’d cut her teeth as head chef at Bakersfield on Penn Avenue Downtown, and at the brewery and pub chain BrewDog, helping open locations throughout the Pittsburgh tri-state area.
The couple said their complementary strengths gave them the confidence to open a restaurant together.
“(It was) her background in fast casual paired with my fine dining background,” Tambellini said, adding that Fulton has been instrumental in documenting and scaling Tambellini’s traditional Italian recipes. “I might have the brand and the recipes, but I could not do this without her.”
With help from family, they renovated the 100-year-old brick building that formerly housed Jolina’s Mediterranean Cuisine. Inside, a brick archway separates the kitchen and dining room, which are decorated in red and green with hanging ivy and vintage Italian travel posters.
Now living in Brookline in Tambellini’s childhood home, the couple said they hope to become rooted in the neighborhood. Tambellini & Co. has joined Brookline Together, the community’s volunteer-led neighborhood organization, and plans to participate in local events.
Tambellini said he feels both pride and responsibility in carrying on the family name.
“To be able to carry on the legacy and represent the history and the tradition is phenomenal,” he said. “Words cannot express how proud I am to be able to do this with the love of my life.”