At this new cafe, with a menu that includes Mattina, Espresso, Bibite, Dolce, Panini Artigianali, Insalate Fresche and Zuppa del Giorno, it’s designed to feel like entering an Italian bar.
“If you go to Italy they refer to cafes as bars, but it’s really not a bar like we have here in America,” said owner Todd Taylor. “You go in and they have espresso and they have pastries and in some you can get little deli sandwiches.”
“So that’s what we were trying to imitate,” he said. “You’re in Florence or Sicily you go right off the piazza and you’re in a café like this.”
Welcome to ciao! ANGIE, located at 51 Whitfield St., Guilford, nestled behind the busy main street of boutiques, restaurants and offices on the edge of the Guilford Green.
The goal was to “create something that was simple, yet very different from other coffee shops and cafes, with the hope that maybe we could expand this and roll it out to other markets,” said Todd Taylor.
Open since the beginning of June they have already started looking in New Haven for their second café.
The site is owned and operated by Water Street Restaurant Group, part of the Water Street Collective, which also includes Water Street Properties, Water Street Management and Water Street Construction.
Founder and managing partner of Water Street Collective is Todd Taylor who owns the business with his wife, Daniela Balzano, owner of Water Street Jewelers with boutiques in Guilford, Madison and New Haven.
“We are blessed,” said Todd Taylor. “For two, two and a half years I’d drive in here and there was nobody in here.”
“Now, every morning, there’s people sitting out in the pavilion,” he said. “So, it’s nice.”
Ballou’s Restaurant and Wine Bar occupied the space for 15 years before closing in 2024.
“We gutted the whole thing, it was a like a catacomb of different rooms,” said Todd Taylor. “Everything needed to be upgraded. Everything is brand new.
The 1,500 square foot space has a seating capacity of 26 inside and an additional 32 in the covered patio area.
The flooring is terrazzo tiles because they “rooted in Italian culture,” said Morgan Taylor, responsible for brand design and development and marketing for Water Street Collective.
The space is “definitely light and airy,” said the 26-year-old Guilford native. “Even with outside, just brightening up our patio to just be more inviting for the shoreline community and afar.”
The menu is Italian inspired with espressos including crème brulee, pistachio and tiramisu lattes, cappuccinos, macchiato, espresso con panna and nitro brew.
The café sources their coffee from Newington’s Saccuzzo Coffee Company, “an Italian family from Sicily,” said Todd Taylor.
“They still keep it small, focus on high quality,” he said.
Todd Taylor isn’t concerned about the local competition for coffee lovers.
“I think we’ve set ourselves above all of those with the quality of coffee we have,” he said.
For breakfast there is rosemary & thyme focaccia, roasted tomatoes, rosemary, thyme, shaved parm and olive oil; whipped ricotta toasted baguette, whipped ricotta and truffle honey and a gluten free warm polenta bowl, sunny side egg, crispy prosciutto and shaved pecorino.
The panini offerings include prosciutto & mozzarella, imported prosciutto, mozzarella, arugula, Balsamic and olive oil; eggplant pesto, roasted eggplant, mozzarella, tomato and pesto and chicken parmigiana, chicken cutlet, mozzarella, marinara, parmesan, basil and olive oil.
For lighter fare, there are salads, including Toscana, arugula, cherry tomatoes, roasted peppers, mozzarella, olives, crisp panko and house dressing and the crowd favorite, the fennel & orange, fennel, orange slices, mixed greens, roasted feta and lemon thyme vinaigrette.
ciao! ANGIE is located at 51 Whitfield St., Guilford, nestled behind the busy main street of boutiques, restaurants and offices on the edge of the Guilford Green. Here, Guilford residents Kenny and Lynn Horton enjoy lunch. (Courtesy)
Guilford resident Kenny and Lynn Horton recently enjoyed lunch at ciao! ANGIE.
Lynn Horton ordered a caprese panini, pressed to be extra crunchy, with extra pesto, her husband enjoyed an eggplant caprese. Lynn Horton’s vanilla cream-filled cornetto dessert was “very, very good,” she said.
ciao! ANGIE is located at 51 Whitfield St., Guilford, nestled behind the busy main street of boutiques, restaurants and offices on the edge of the Guilford Green. (Courtesy)
Lynn Horton had high praise for the new establishment.
“I love it,” she said. “It’s just so pretty, plus it’s light and airy.”
“My favorite part is going to be that outside seating,” she said. “You’re not getting struck by the sun, you get fresh air.”
“I can’t wait to have more get togethers with my friends outside, in that pavilion,” she said.
The name pays homage to Daniela Balzano’s grandmother, Angie Balzano.
It was during an annual Balzano family vacation on the Jersey Shore last summer that the idea was hatched.
“We were sitting around while we were cooking and we said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we could honor Grandma Angie,” Todd Taylor said.
“She died in ’93, worked into her 80’s as a cocktail waitress,” he said.
“If she were here, she’d be sitting down and talking with everyone, but have the urge to run into the kitchen and help out in the kitchen, as well,” he said. “Just a fabulous, fabulous lady.”
ciao! ANGIE is located at 51 Whitfield St., Guilford, nestled behind the busy main street of boutiques, restaurants and offices on the edge of the Guilford Green. (Courtesy)
Morgan Taylor remembers her fondly.
“Her memory still lives on so immensely throughout the family,” she said. “All these tables are Angie’s tables and we’re here to gather like she would have wanted.”
“We wanted it to feel like an Italian café where you come and you sit and you chat and you stay a while,” she said. “Creating a space that felt inviting enough to come sit was very important to us.”
In keeping with the focus on family, Aunt Lu’s Ricotta Cookies have a very visible spot in the pastry case.
ciao! ANGIE is located at 51 Whitfield St., Guilford, nestled behind the busy main street of boutiques, restaurants and offices on the edge of the Guilford Green. (Courtesy)
While most of the Italian pastries come in from other sources and are baked on location, the Ricotta cookies are made from scratch, in house, with a recipe that Aunt Lu, Daniela Balzano’s aunt, has perfected.
“They’re just fantastic,” said Todd Taylor. “They’re one of our best sellers.”
Andrea “Andrew” DiMatteo, chief operating officer of the Water Street Restaurant Group, oversees the daily operations at ciao! ANGIE as well as the group’s other restaurants that include Guilford’s Prime on the Green and their next venture, opening next spring, at 545 Long Wharf Drive in New Haven.
At ciao! ANGIE each member of the management group has a favorite from the menu.
For DiMatteo, the tiramisu latte is his go to drink; Todd Taylor said he is a crème brulee guy and Rachel Martineau, general manager, said she loves the iced Americano because “I love our espresso, itself. It’s roasted in Connecticut; it is absolutely delicious.”
Without any hesitation, Martineau said her favorite food item is fennel & orange salad.
ciao! ANGIE is located at 51 Whitfield St., Guilford, nestled behind the busy main street of boutiques, restaurants and offices on the edge of the Guilford Green. Left to right, Andrea DiMatteo and Todd Taylor. (Sarah Kyrcz)
“It’s very unique,” she said. “I love it. I could eat it all the time.”
For DiMatteo there is never too much coffee but adds a disclaimer.
“I think once you get to the 5th shot of espresso that things start to change a little bit,” he said, laughing.
He created many recipes on the ciao! ANGIE menu.
He has been in the business, since he was 10 years old, honing his skills in his family’s Italian restaurants.
The breakfast polenta bowl was one of his success stories and is “probably our best breakfast seller,” said Todd Taylor.
“I mean, where else can you get that?” he said. “Only here.”
This recipe guru said much of his what makes it onto the menu is trial and error.
“A lot of things we did here, on paper, they weren’t supposed to work,” he said.
“Our crème brulee, the two flavor profiles that we put together to make that work, they’re not supposed to work, but they do in a very, very, very good way,” he said.
“It’s exciting,” he said. “It gives me goosebumps and it really makes me excited.”
“I’m really looking forward to the future,” he said. “Food makes people happy.”
ciao! ANGIE 51 Whitfield St., Guilford, 203-533-7912, careers@waterstreeteats.com; ciaoangie.com; Instagram ciaoangieofficial
