BETHELEHEM, Pa. — Siblings Rachel and Luke Prosseda had talked about running a restaurant for more than a decade. Now a year into the dream, they’re making the place their own.
- The Prosseda family bought The Vineyard restaurant in Bethlehem last year
- Rachael and Luke are siblings that run the restaurant
- They recently renamed it The Vineyard Di Normi and are adding their own touches to the restaurant
The family bought The Vineyard, an Italian restaurant in Fountain Hill in September 2021.
Last month, they changed the name to The Vineyard Di Norma, as an homage to their ancestral home in Italy, where their family ran a chocolate factory.
But when they visit Norma, they say they never go out to eat.
“Everybody has their own grandmother's way of doing things.”Rachael Prosseda, manager of The Vineyard di Norma
“Everybody has their own grandmother's way of doing things,” Rachael Prosseda said.
There, cooking “is a very slow process. It's a very proud process,” she said. “It's very much pomp and circumstance.”
She’s the older sister. Her background is in social work, but now she runs the front of the house.
Luke Prosseda, four years younger, is a chef who trained at the Culinary Institute of America, based in Hyde Park, New York.
“We just are a really close family,” Rachael Prosseda said. “We spent a lot of time together, so we cook a lot together.”
A breath of fresh air, a family affair
The two siblings grew up in a small town of 3,000 in Wellsboro, Tioga County. Rachael Prosseda moved to the Lehigh Valley eight years ago for work.
Her husband, whom she met at Bloomsburg University, is from the area. Soon after, Luke followed so he could complete an internship in the Poconos.
To them, the Lehigh Valley was a breath of fresh air.
“It just was enough of the action, enough culture and food and ability to get places,” Rachael Prosseda said. “Now I get to like bitch and moan that it's getting too crowded.”
The restaurant is a family affair. Their parents moved down to the Lehigh Valley last year. Their cousin and her husband also recently moved to the area and now are looking at houses.
They all help out from time to time.
“Dad, he loves to bus tables,” Rachael Prosseda said. “He schmoozes, he talks with everybody.”
'Food that we would eat'
One of the restaurant’s most popular dishes is Parisian-style gnocchi with butternut squash, shiitake mushrooms and onions. It dissolves in your mouth.
At first, she said, people were a little thrown off by the unusual presentation, so they just started bringing it out to tables.
“Now it's just fire,” she said. “It just sells.”
It's made with a creamy, pâte à choux base, instead of a more conventional potato or ricotta one. The chef's secret? “A metric ... load of parmesan,” he said.
Since he and his sister took over the restaurant, he's been working to develop new creations.
“This was an accident,” he said. “I had some leftover stuff from a tasting that I did.
“And then it was like, oh.”
The pasta Gorgonzola is made with Calabrian chili, a young, sweet Gorgonzola, a crispy broccoli rabe and shrimp. Vibrant greens don't usually signal a decadent pasta dish, but once you start eating it, it’s hard to stop.
The bolognese had a generous dollop of homemade ricotta, with both pork and beef in a hearty red sauce. It’s served over tagliatelle pasta.
For Rachael Prosseda, the core value the siblings share is quality. She said they serve only “food that we would eat."
“If we have to skimp, it goes off the menu,” she said.
'Each other's connector'
Their wine list includes what they call eating wines.
“With Italian wine, when you pair it with food,” she said, “it really blooms.”
They make their own ice creams with mascarpone buttercream. Their flavor list is funky and includes Luxardo cherry and chocolate fudge, candy bars and even black garlic and gorgonzola dolce. The last one was made by their mom, and it sold out in a couple of hours.
When in graduate school, Rachael Prosseda wrote her master’s thesis on the sibling relationship, which is longer than any other relationship people have in their lives, including parents and spouses.
“Are we unique for being so close? Or is this how everybody is?” she asked.
“We are each other's connector,” she said. “That really helps keep us grounded.”