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Figs and Wine in Staten Islandb

One recent sunny Saturday Joe Scaravella trudged through his Sangiovese vines in purple Converse sneakers and denim cutoffs, a thick gold chain dangling around his neck. “I don’t have time to sleep,” he sighed.

That’s because he lives a double life. Much of the day Mr. Scaravella, age 54, works his full-time job as a material forecaster for the Metropolitan Transit Authority in Brooklyn, N.Y. But most nights Mr. Scaravella is better known as the proprietor and founder of Enoteca Maria, a 35-seat Italian restaurant that’s generated so much press it’s attracting visitors from other countries—and even Manhattan—over to sleepy Staten Island for a meal.

Enoteca Maria’s popularity lies in large part with its “nonnas”: a slew of local Italian grandmothers who rotate shifts, cooking up specialties based on what’s available that night. And what’s available is based in part on what ingredients are growing in Mr. Scaravella’s sloping, terraced garden behind his home up the hill.

On just a fifth of an acre, Mr. Scaravella’s garden overlooks the harbor, Brooklyn and the Verrazano Bridge. Every patch of soil is occupied by a wide variety of foods including arugula, watermelon-sized squash, peaches, figs and San Marzano tomatoes. Last year Mr. Scaravella found room to plant 30 Sangiovese vines; he spent much of this afternoon crawling up and down the hill weeding his little vineyard.

Many of the plants were donated by neighbors and customers. As such, Mr. Scaravella doesn’t know the names of half the varietals he’s growing. But for the past two years he and his posse of friends and volunteers have carefully followed the protocol for biodynamic farming, a process that involves planting according to the lunar cycle and using spray-on concoctions made from things like animal skulls filled with oak bark and deer bladders stuffed with yarrow blossoms to aid in composting and fertilization. Next year Mr. Scaravella hopes to get his plot certified as the first biodynamic farm in the five boroughs.

“It gives you an edge if you have your own garden because everything tastes better,” said Tattfoo Tan, a local artist who helped clear stones and pluck weeds. Mr. Scaravella said he’d like more help, but has grown wary of strangers after one volunteer chopped down some vines he had grown attached to. “I was heartbroken,” he said.

In front of the garden is Mr. Scaravella’s modest two-bedroom, two-bathroom Dutch Colonial filled with family heirlooms and flea-market finds. He and his wife split up two years ago; one of his sons helps him out at the restaurant and stays in the guest bedroom, “ruining any chance of me being a bachelor,” he joked. His mother, whom the restaurant is named after, is a big presence. Her antique ceramic dishware, painted with Norman Rockwell images, rests along a wooden rail that circles the dining room, and her old handbag hangs from a chair she used to sit in.

Born to Italian immigrants, Mr. Scaravella grew up in Brooklyn’s working class Bath Beach neighborhood and lived on the same block for 50 years until most of his immediate family passed away. In 2006, he bought his home here for $673,000, convinced it was meant for him when he saw the dish rail where he could display his mother’s plates. (Homes on the same street are currently listed for $663,000 and $844,000.)

Mr. Scaravella said he had no intention of opening a restaurant when he came upon a storefront for rent while he was out hunting one morning for a breakfast pastry. He placed an ad in a local Italian-language newspaper for a cook, and when women from as far away as the Bronx came showing off trays of their finest creations, he decided to try a rotation of chefs rather than just one. Rosa Turano drives in from New Jersey once a week to cook Northern Italian specialties like salt cod with milk and cheese and rabbit stewed with cinnamon. Because her husband is diabetic, Ms. Turano says it’s only at the restaurant that she can “use butters and creams and make things I really love to make.”

Most nights, Mr. Scaravella drinks and chats with his restaurant guests until the wee hours and fetes every birthday by blasting the Beatles song, “Birthday,” on the stereo. He’s thinking about opening another restaurant nearby featuring the cuisine of “nonnas from around the world.”

But Mr. Scaravella said he has no plans to quit his day job, which offers health and retirement benefits. After long nights at the restaurant, Mr. Scaravella sometimes “comes in a little groggy,” says Vincent Romanzi, Mr. Scaravella’s manager at the MTA. “But one cup of coffee and he’s back to normal.”

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