Cowley Flavors is a photojournalistic column documenting food and life stories from ethnic restaurants and grocery shops located on Cowley Road, updated weekly.
Looking for a genuine Italian dining experience in Oxford? Have you tried the oldest restaurant in Cowley? Approved by an Italian friend.
Mario’s Pizzeria Trattoria opened in 1989 on Cowley Road, long before most current Oxford students were born. The eponymous Mario is now in his nineties and enjoying retirement back in Italy. Despite owning one of the most common Italian names, Mario’s has a unique place in Oxford residents’ hearts. For many, dining at Mario’s is not only a feast on pizzas and pastas, but a sensory journey that travels through time and space.
[Mario’s Pizzeria Trattoria, the oldest shop on Cowley Road. Image by Shixin Zhao]
Dominico, who took over the restaurant after Mario’s retirement and has worked here for almost twenty years, makes sure that everything remains the way it used to be. The whole shop, from the menu to the decor, is almost identical to how it was three decades ago under Mario. You can feel how time has left its traces on the skin of the timber stairs, hear how life is celebrated across generations through Italian all-time classics by Pino Daniele and Lucio Battisti, and see how Mario and his employees transported a piece of Italy, saturated with memories and culture, through the iconic photographs and football league flags on the walls.
[Established in 1989, Mario’s interior maintains the way it is. Image by Shixin Zhao]
[Dominico takes orders while chatting with customers. Image by Shixin Zhao]
“I arrived in England in 1987 to look for jobs,” Dominico recalls. “Back then the exchange rate between British pounds and Italian lira – our currency before euro – was very good. I worked in many other places in Oxford before being introduced to Mario. He took me in and I never left.” Beginning on the outskirts of Naples, young Dominico’s transnational journey to Oxford mirrors the story of many others from the south of Italy, who came in search of a better outlook. Unlike those who eventually went back, Dominico endured the ache of endless working hours and the loneliness of living on foreign soil: he stayed. He made Oxford a new home.
“Now I just go back to Italy for holiday, but I will never live there again. Why? I have my wife and children here, where can I go?” Dominico grins.
“Do they speak Italian?” I asked.
“No, their mother is Irish, and the kids only speak English!” He laughs jokingly.
Dominico now manages a team of six staff members and part-time employees. Just like his own family, the crew represents a diverse group of cultures: Sardinian, Albanian, and Greek. But you might ask: how can an international team produce authentic Italianness?. Just like the restaurant’s unchanging name, , Mario’s Italian spirit remains in every corner of the shop. “You see these stairs? The shop has had three levels since Mario’s time. The kitchen is downstairs and customers sit upstairs. Every day, we have to carry the dishes up and down the stairs a hundred times. They exhaust you! But you know what Mario used to teach us?” Dominico quotes from his old boss with flawless precision, as if every word is ingrained in his mind, “‘Work with brains, not legs!’ That’s what Mario said. Carry more things at a time. If you see extra dishes, take them down. Otherwise the job will wear you down.” Dominico’s eyes spark with inspiration when he mentions Mario’s name. Unsurprisingly, Dominico uses the same mottos to train the new employees. And so, the founder of the restaurant lives on through generations, along with his ideas, ethics and visions.
[Mario’s has three floors. Image by Shixin Zhao]
[Staff have to travel up and down the stairs between the kitchen and the customers. Image by Shixin Zhao]
And that is precisely why you can trust that the food at Mario’s tastes the same as the day the shop opened on Cowley. The genuine Italian dining experience is made by authentic ingredients freshly imported from Italy and a dedicated team strictly trained by Mediterranean values. Regulars know this well. Before it hits eight o’clock, long lines form outside Mario’s waiting for a dinner table. Families, elderly and students eagerly make orders and impatiently shift in their seats as their stomachs groan. The fragrance of pizzas conquers the room, as cheese softly melts over the dough and crusts rises with crispy bubbles. Every gaze is locked on the open oven at the front of the shop, as the chef swiftly spreads tomato sauce and grated mozzarella on the elastic surface of the dough.
[Pizza chef waiting in front of the oven as the cheese melts. Image by Shixin Zhao
[Making nine pizzas in one order. Image by Shixin Zhao]
[Waiter ready to serve. Image by Shixin Zhao]
“Mario also used to say, ‘Food good for me is food good for you.’ We don’t sell people anything that we don’t like.” Dominico seriously emphasizes this. “We are an Italian restaurant. We only sell real Italian food here. Never mess around with the ingredients. When you mix too many things together, it starts to stink! We keep it simple, fresh, like the way it’s supposed to be in Italy, not like other places. Domino’s? I don’t know what Domino’s is!” He exclaims as he raises his hands high up in protest, with an attitude that can only come from growing up in the south of the peninsula.
[The open oven at Mario’s shows how pizzas are made from scratch. Image by Shixin Zhao]
[Seafood pasta with prawns, squids and mussels. Image by Shixin Zhao]
[Pizza Napoletana with mozzarella, anchories, capers and olives. Image by Shixin Zhao]
[The must-have Italian sparkling water San Pellegrino served with sliced lemon. Image by Shixin Zhao]
[Tiramisú with fresh cream and coffee. Image by Shixin Zhao]
“We are southern Italian men, you know.” Dominico says when he wipes off the sweat dripping from his forehead. “We are fighters.” The restaurant has stood firm through Brexit, the pandemic, and every storm in between to continue serving the Oxford community. “Rents, imports, everything got more expensive. But we’re still here!”
[Dominico and his team of six serve hundreds of orders per month. Image by Shixin Zhao]
Always bursting with chatters and boundless energy, Dominico has won the hearts of many Oxford residents. He is a living example of how lives intertwine, worlds collide, and borders dissolve at the heart of Oxford. Everyone is treated like family at Mario’s, unless, of course, you commit the cardinal sin of pairing fish with cheese and mayonnaise. So next time you visit Mario’s Pizzeria Trattoria for a genuine Italian dining experience, arrive hungry, order quickly, savor slowly, and have a small chat over espresso with the staff. Do it the Italian way.