Local Chef Crowned 2017 Northeast Pasta Showdown World Champion

Greenville, NC, December 06, 2017 --(PR.com)-- Massimo Mannino, chef and co-owner of Marabella Restaurants, can now add the title of World Champion to his ever-growing list of accolades.

Mannino joined 19 other chefs in Atlantic City, NJ in October to compete at the International Pizza Expo’s Northeast Pasta Showdown, sponsored by Barilla. The competition was held over a two-day period and each chef had to prepare two separate dishes – one, a signature dish, and the other a dish using a table of common ingredients supplied by the event. According to the official rules, the signature dishes were judged “on trueness to Italian cuisine’s basic tenets: technique, presentation, flavor balance and taste,” and the second dishes were intended to test the contestants’ creativity and imagination.

For his two dishes, Mannino prepared Linguine Con Vongole, linguini with clams in a white wine sauce, and Linguine al Limone, featuring mussels, shrimp and clams in a lemony cream sauce. Both award winning dishes are now featured on the menu at Nino’s Cucina Italiana, Marabella Restaurant’s flagship Italian restaurant located in Greenville, NC.

In addition to Mannino’s World Champion title, Nino’s Cucina Italiana was recently named Best Italian Restaurant through a reader contest sponsored by The Daily Reflector, the local newspaper in Greenville, NC. The same contest awarded Marabella Old World Pizza the title of Best Pizza. In 2016 Mannino joined the US Pizza Team, was awarded 3rd place in the Western Culinary Trials, Classico division, and 2nd place in the International Pizza Challenge, Pan Pizza division. Locally, Nino’s has won the People’s Choice award at the March of Dimes’ annual Signature Chefs Auction fundraiser in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2017. Marabella Old World Pizza also won Best Pizza in Mixer, a local entertainment magazine, in 2010, 2011 and 2012. Mannino has also been featured in documentaries on UNC-TV’s North Carolina Weekend and various other press.

Massimo Mannino is Co-Owner/Co-Executive Chef of Marabella Restaurants which includes Nino’s Cucina Italiana in Greenville, NC, Marabella Italian Restaurant in Washington, NC and Marabella Old World Pizza in Greenville and Farmville, NC Mannino enjoys sharing over 75 years of Italian family tradition that has been acquired over three generations, and continues to make food fresh daily from centuries-old authentic Italian and New York-style recipes.