Insatiable Eats Creative Kitchen to open in former Michelangelo’s location

Insatiable Eats Chef Marco Barrila has leased the former Michelangelo location on East Main Street and Maple Avenue. Michelangelo’s, which closed its doors in March.

Insatiable Eats Creative Kitchen will be home base for the successful catering and events company founded by Barrila and his wife Sheila in 2010, creating and catering events on the East End featuring Barrila’s international and regional cuisine.

Insatiable Eats Creative Kitchen will also be an eclectic restaurant and market offering a variety of international foods and showcasing Barrila’s Sicilian roots.

In an interview inside the former Italian restaurant and pizzeria Friday afternoon, Barrila excitingly described his plans to open up the interior of the space, eliminate the wall that separated the pizzeria from restaurant seating, and remove all the booths as well as the freestanding fireplace near the front entrance.

“I want everything all open,” Barrila said of the interior space. His vision is to have an open kitchen, where customers can watch chefs prepare meals, and watch fresh pasta and raviolis being made by machines Barrila is importing from Sicily.

There will be meals for takeout and fresh ingredients that customers will be able to purchase and bring home to prepare in their own kitchens — as well as table service in the restaurant, which will offer a casual atmosphere. He wants the restaurant to be a place where people will be comfortable coming for dinner after work and where they’ll be comfortable bringing their children.

It’s all about the food, the chef said. There will be TVs in the restaurant, but they will only have cooking shows playing, he said, “not sports.”

Barilla plans to convert the restaurant’s bar into an antipasto bar, where customers will be able to choose from a variety of small plates to pair with a glass of wine or beer.

“My plans are still evolving,” Barrila said. But don’t expect Insatiable Eats Creative Kitchen to be a typical Italian restaurant and pizzeria. There will be pizzas, but they will not be a main menu — and pizza won’t be sold by the slice. “There are so many pizzerias,” Barrila said. “We don’t need another one,” he said.

“This will be different. My menu will be creative and fun.” It will feature specialties from his native Sicily, but it will also offer diverse cuisines, he said.

Also don’t expect Insatiable Eats Creative Kitchen to be anything like the Shinnecock Lobster Factory, which he opened in Southampton four years ago with Shinnecock tribal leader Lance Gumbs.

“If you want lobster, go to the Lobster Factory,” he said with a grin. “I recommend it. It’s very good. But that’s not what we’ll be doing here.”

Born and raised in Messina, a port city at the northwest tip of the Sicily, Barrila grew up working at his grandmother’s trattoria, an eatery dating back to the 1800s. He came to New York at age 24. He has been featured on Chopped and other Food Network events.

Running the front of the house for Barrila will be Corrado Muttin, a veteran NYC restaurateur and restaurant manager. “Corrado will be my right hand,” Barrila said.

Muttin was on site Friday afternoon overseeing workers who were cleaning the restaurant’s interior.

Barrila said he hopes to be able to open before the end of October.