Downstairs, Adelina Orazzo runs the Italian kitchen. Ms. Orazzo, 61, who moved to Brooklyn from Naples, Italy, 25 years earlier, is “very proprietary about her knowledge,” Mr. Scarvella said.

When she was a child, her family was very poor, Mr. Scaravella said of Ms. Orazzo, whose English is limited. Her uncle would paint the floor of the house to make it look tiled. Mr. Scaravella attributes her cooking knowledge to her upbringing. She cooks Old World dishes like sheep’s head; she makes stuffing from ingredients normally thrown to the side — chicken livers and hearts and gizzards.

“These are poverty-driven dishes,” he said. “I really like to keep these as simple and as authentic as possible, because they really represent... it’s really the origin of food.”

Aside from Ms. Orazzo, each of the cooks comes in one day a month to help with the daily specials, which makes for a unique energy in the kitchen, he said.

There is a distinct difference between a grandmother’s homey kitchen and the nonnas enterprise: A grandmother never turns anyone away.

At Enoteca Maria, however, Mr. Scaravella doesn’t have much choice.

“We are completely booked,” he said into the headset, over and over. “I can put your name on a wait-list and call you, if something changes.”