ZaVino in Cross Keys Gets off to a Tasty Start

For as long as he can remember, ZaVino Italian Marketplace owner Gino Kozera worked in hospitality, mostly waiting tables and bartending.

By the age of 25, he and Nancy Longo opened Maryland fare-focused Pierpoint in Fells Point. Then, years later, he opened Amber, a gastropub in Locust Point. Now with the new grab-and-go Italian market, pizzeria, deli, and wine shop in Cross Keys, Kozera is finally selling the food that’s in his DNA. After all, his grandparents hail from Riposto in Sicily.

And while Italian food and family meals with homemade pasta on Sundays were central to his upbringing, it took him time to realize that everyone loves Italian food—not just Italians.

“It’s just taken me longer to figure out that the number-one food people crave is Italian cuisine,” he says, laughing. “The story I’m telling now is about a love for pizza and wine.” His and ours.

What does the name mean?
It’s harder to name a restaurant than a kid. My 32-year-old daughter came up with that—she’s the creative type. “Za” is pizza and “vino” is wine. We married the two I wanted something that was simple and easy to say and something that rolls off the tongue, something that’s memorable and tells a story.

What inspired which gourmet goods you carry in the market?
The inspiration for us is Di Bruno Bros. in Philadelphia and Eataly. No one does it better than Eataly—it just sucks you in. I also grew up going to some of the places like Trinacria and Pastore’s. They are different than we are. We couldn’t create that old-world feel of the wood floors and tiles, so I went with the azure blue, the color of the Mediterranean and Naples. I put a modern spin on an Italian market and made it light and airy.

Tell me a little about your team.
Andrew Weinzirl [who made his mark on the scene with Maggie’s Farm in Lauraville] is running the kitchen and Andrew Isaac [the former sommelier at Magdalena in Mt. Vernon] is the wine director.

What did you want to do with the menu?
The first thing I wanted to do was create an incredible pizza. I wanted quality ingredients that are not too filling, with more of a Neapolitan crispy crust that travels well, like you can get in Naples. We have an eggplant gratin with roasted eggplant, which is a spin on what we did at Pierpoint 35 years ago. Nancy used to fry the eggplant and layer it with caramelized onions and marinara and put it in a springform pan and we’d serve it that way. Andrew did it with roasted eggplant, which is healthier and lighter. It’s flying off the shelves.

Tell me about the wine selection.
There isn’t a lot of focus on Italian wines in wine shops. It’s usually France, Spain, or California. We wanted to focus on Italian wine.

Why did you want to open here?
Seven or eight years ago, I really wanted to do something like this with more of a market and bottle shop—but it just didn’t happen. It has to be the right time and place—and this was both. I like the city-county feel of [Cross Keys]. It’s a village and it has openness and trees and grass and it’s a really good hub for community. It has parking and checks a lot of the boxes that places in the city don’t offer right now.