The Sicilian Butcher brings authentic Italian cuisine to life, blending tradition with innovative twists inspired by the foods and flavors chef Joey Maggiore grew up on. Maggiore is the founder and executive chef for The Sicilian Butcher, one of the five brands owned and operated by his Maggiore Group. His father, Tomaso Maggiore, “was a master chef with over 50 restaurants, so I grew up in his kitchens,” says Maggiore.
His father was born and raised in Sicily but emigrated to America, and in curating his cuisine, “he loved America, but he never forgot where he came from,” Maggiore recalls. As a young boy in Phoenix, Maggiore says that while watching his father cook at his high-end Italian spot Tomaso’s, “the [guests’] smiles would light up, their eyes would light up, and I thought, ‘God, I gotta do that!’” he continues. While other kids his age aspired to be athletes or scientists, “I was told, ‘You’re going to be cutting tomatoes and making dishes.’”
Founded in 2017 in Scottsdale, Arizona, The Sicilian Butcher is Maggiore’s signature ode to his father, who passed away in 2021. “You taught me all the land, you taught me all the cuisine,” he says, in reference to Tomaso, “and I wanna do it my way for you.”
Owner(s): Joey and Cristina Maggiore
HQ: Phoenix, Arizona
Cuisine: Italian Fine Dining
Units: 4
Year Founded: 2017
Best known for its fresh pastas and range of meatballs, The Sicilian Butcher offers Italian food with a little bit of an “American twist just to make it palatable and fun, but the nostalgia of Sicily is really there.” Next door to each Sicilian Butcher location is its sister restaurant The Sicilian Baker, with treats like build-your-own cannoli and gelati. All offerings at both restaurants are prepared “like we make them in [our] hometown in Sicily,” Maggiore says, “and all the recipes from the marinara to the bolognese to the pastas [are made] the way that I grew up making it.”
He touts his food offerings as “very authentic. If you shut your eyes and pretend you’re in Sicily, you’re going to taste the food that’s there.” But when you open your eyes, you’re in one of the four The Sicilian Butcher locations in the steaming Arizona heat.
The Sicilian Butcher has yet to franchise, and all stores remain owned by The Maggiore Group, which also oversees Maggiore’s four other concepts including Hash Kitchen and The Mexicano, totaling 23 restaurants in all.
The Sicilian Butcher currently has four locations—three in Arizona and one in Fort Worth—with three additional stores set to open in Texas in the coming year.
Maggiore’s obvious passion helps to elevate the cuisine of The Sicilian Butcher, but also the atmosphere. He also lauds “the creativity of keeping it original from Sicily. There’s a lot of great restaurants out there and we all try to be the best, but I think I have a little bit of a headstart. I’ve traveled to Sicily so many times, spent the summers there, and I try to really do it as authentic as possible.”
One of the ways that The Sicilian Butcher stands out is its emphasis on meatballs. The menu features five different meatball options with eight choices of sauce additions. Guests who seek an assortment can even choose a fun ferris wheel presentation. “You gotta make it playful and artsy, but you’ve still got to have the quality to execute the flavors of the island,” Maggiore says.
The Sicilian Butcher has a chicken parmesan-style meatball, which is fried in the breadcrumbs and filled with mozzarella and parmesan cheeses. The brand’s most popular meatball is Tomaso’s Sicilian, which includes a veal, pork, and beef base dotted with Auricchio Provolone and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheeses, pine nuts, onions, raisins, and herbed breadcrumbs. Maggiore notes that this is his go-to for dinner, saying, “it reminds me of my dad and it reminds me of my childhood. One bite and it reminds me of every story that I may have forgotten.”
Again staying true to their commitment to authenticity, they import all of their meats, cheeses, spices, and produce directly from Italy. They also pride themselves on making everything in their own kitchen, Maggiore says. “We do everything in house, we roll every meatball, we make every pasta, we make every sauce.”
The Sicilian Butcher’s other selling point is its charcuterie boards, though Maggiore and fellow Italians would call it antipasto. With charcuterie boards trending right now, Maggiore notes that The Sicilian Butcher, as always, tries to keep their offerings rooted in tradition. “We try to stick with the cured meats and everything, obviously from Italy, we import everything … from the salamis to the soppressata to prosciutto to some fun cheeses.” Served atop a signature wooden board, the antipasto trays also feature non-regional treats, like ciabatta bread, grapes, dried apricots, fig jam, olive tapenade, and a goat cheese with honey drizzle. “We do these fun little things that play into people’s perception of [what] a good charcuterie board will be,” he adds, “but not forgetting what it was meant for.”
For the super-hungry crowd, The Sicilian Butcher also has a five-foot-long ‘strada board’ that serves four or five people. Along with the aforementioned meats and cheeses, this item also includes arancini (fried balls of risotto), meatballs, polenta, fried calamari, bruschetta, olives, and artichokes. “You get a bottle of wine and a five-foot board, you don’t need anything else,” Maggiore adds.
The Sicilian Butcher is “a little bit of everything, a lot of families [coming in to dine], but you still have the fun,” Maggiore says of the interior vibe. The inside “has that sexy vibe still, so you’re getting single people coming to hang out at the bar’s happy hour,” he says, “but also just groups and fun. I’d say we’re very eclectic and we have everybody in there.”
Designed by his wife and co-founder Cristina Maggiore, each restaurant’s dining space has a finished brick interior with vibrant red and black furniture, with vintage portraits and wooden cutting boards lining the walls. “We’re trying to make it feel not so much like Nonna’s house, but maybe a modern Nonna’s house,” he adds.
