New Canaan's Gourmet Alley Provides It Manero's Way

Jimmy Dadio, owner of Gourmet Alley, a recent addition to New Canaan's downtown business center, says he wants to continue the traditions of great meats and fine side orders that he learned at the now-gone Manero's in Greenwich.

"I worked at Manero's for about 12 years," Dadio said. When the restaurant closed, he opened up Greenwich Prime Meats just around the corner with a business partner who had been a landscaper.

The idea was that Dadio would teach the landscaper the business, but the two had differences of opinion, so Dadio struck out on his own in New Canaan.

Early in the morning on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, Dadio is down at Hunt's Point in the Bronx to pick out meats. He has an arrangement with a New York City restaurant, Peter Luger's, to buy large cuts of meat together.

Offering fine meats from Hunt's Point—from the same purveyor that Manero's used—are one of the traditions from Manero's that Dadio maintains. Another is Manero's well-liked side dishes.

Any commuter coming home on the Metro-North train to New Canaan can call Gourmet Alley and order cooked meat and side dishes, and Dadio will arrange to have someone waiting at the station to hand it off, he said.

Eventually, Dadio said, he wants to have sausage meats hanging from the ceiling and in the windows for customers to ogle at as they enter the store.

"It's going to be something out of Arthur Avenue," he said, referring to the famous Italian food center in the Bronx. "Everyone's telling me we need a place like this in town."