What Casa Stellina means
A little star, and a house to put it in. Where the name came from, and what we wanted it to promise.
Stellina is a little star. Casa is a house. Put the two together and you have the whole idea, which is why the name took about a minute to land and has not been questioned since.
The star came first
There is a star in the wordmark, small and gold, sitting just above the script. It is the same star that belongs to Stellina Ristorante in Oyster Bay, our sister restaurant, and to the family that has been feeding Long Island since Stella Ristorante opened in Floral Park in 1960.
A star is a good thing for a restaurant to be named after. It is not loud. You have to be somewhere reasonably dark to see one properly, and you have to look up.
Then the house
Casa is the part that does the work. A ristorante is a business. A casa is somewhere you are expected, where the table is already set and nobody is counting how long you have been sitting at it.
That distinction decided more than the name. It is why the bar takes walk-ins whether or not the dining room is full, and why the tables toward the back are close enough together that you will probably end up talking to the people at the next one.
Italian, at dusk
The line we settled on is Italian, at dusk, and it is the closest we have come to writing down what we are aiming for. Not lunch. Not late. The hour when the light goes amber, the first cork comes out, and the evening has not decided yet how long it is going to be.
We open at four. Come and find the star.
