NASSAU, The Bahamas, 28 November 2011: Chef Anthony Notarfrancesco knows food. In particular, he knows Italian food. So, when given the opportunity create a fresh, new menu for Anthony’s on Paradise Island, he drew on his Italian roots and created a menu that married Italian to Bahamian/Caribbean cuisine.

In doing so, he created a dining experience that is unique to this popular Paradise Island restaurant. Yet the elegant cuisine is offered at prices that one would find on the “other side of the bridge”. Anthony’s is the affordable Paradise Island experience.

“I came to The Bahamas years ago, as the Italian chef for the popular Sole Mare restaurant in the Carnival Crystal Palace Resort and also worked as the banquet chef for the resort. That time was a period of discovery for me. I was creating wonderful Italian dishes, but at the same time I was absorbing ideas and influences from The Bahamas,” he says.

He later moved to the Green Turtle Club in the Abacos, where a regimen of three fresh daily specials, 21 per week, stretched his culinary skills and called on the influences he had absorbed in The Bahamas and earlier in California. His personal approach to cuisine was crystallizing and brought him back to the capital, where his eclectic skills were exercised as the banquet chef at the Wyndham, executive chef at the Paradise Island Harbour Resort, Lucianos of Chicago and finally at Anthony’s where he is executive chef and manager.

“Anthony’s gave me the opportunity to stretch out”, he says. “And “stretch out” he did, creating an excellent menu that imaginatively features Italian and Bahamian/Caribbean cuisine. His efforts have clearly been successful, as diners have commented very favourably on the results.

So homemade island bread is offered with “island jerk olive oil” and mussels marinara are offered, as are Bahamian conch fritters. A variety of classic Italian pasta dishes start you off on the next course, including linguine vongole, clams tossed in a white wine or marinara sauce; lobster ravioli, tender pillows of pasta stuffed with lobster and cheese, finished with a tomato cream sauce and scampi diavolo, linguine tossed with shrimp in a spicy marinara sauce.

Island favourites include Nassau grouper picatta, pan crisped grouper served with lemon butter and capers; seafood brochette, seared salmon, shrimp, grouper and scallops with a warm cherry tomato salad over orzo pasta; cracked conch and grilled red snapper.

There are also a variety of meat and poultry dishes, all of which reflect Anthony’s skill at balancing one’s options between the familiar and a new experience. Dishes include pork chop Marsala, chicken Parmesan, chicken rose merino, New York sirloin, braised lamb shank and Anthony’s special baby back ribs.

Pizza lovers will be delighted to learn that Anthony’s has researched and revived the famous Swank’s Pizza recipes that kept Bahamians feasting on “the best pizza ever” for years.   Pizza is available to eat in or take out. The pizzas are destined to become a smash hit with time share residents and local residents alike