NUTLEYJOURNAL
ESSEXNEWSDAILY.COM
The library has it all
— See Page 3
Celebrating 25 years
— See Page 8
2024
HIGH SCHOOL
FOOTBALL
PREVIEW See Inside
SEPTEMBER 2024
VOL. 36 NO. 45
Restauranter enjoying a delicious run By Joe Ungaro Editor Nutley natives and residents watching the Belmont or Haskell Stakes might have found themselves rooting for eventual winner Dornoch because of the maroon and gray colors he wore. The racing colors were in fact a tribute to Nutley High School, where the horse’s owner, Vito Cucci, went to school and played on the football team. One of the owners of Nanina’s in the Park in Belleville, Cucci is having a great summer. “It’s been some run,” said Vito Cucci, who breeds and races horses and owns Dornoch, the winner of the Belmont Stakes and the Haskell Stakes. Dornoch was scheduled to run in the Travers Stakes in Saratoga on Aug. 24 and the Breeders Cup on Nov. 1 at Del Mar in San Diego, before moving into retirement as a stud. Cucci is a Nutley native and owns Nanina’s with two other Nutley guys; brothers Barry and Joe Maurillo. Together, they have four sons, three of whom are Nutley High School graduates, working in the business. In addition to Nanina's in the Park in Belleville, the partners own Chateau Grande Hotel in East Brunswick, Park Chateau Estate & Gardens in East Brunswick and The Park Savoy in Florham Park. “Their sites are historic places that have been renovated at great expense and brought back to their original opulent glory,” said Karen J. Irvine, his publicist. “Their efforts have saved these mansions from the wrecking ball to preserve a bit of New Jersey's rich history.” Cucci grew up in the restaurant business; his family owned Cucci’s in West Orange until it closed in 1990. He started working there full time while he was in college after his father got sick. “I hooked up with my current partners, who are both from Nutley, when they came to me with an opportunity,” Cucci
Photo Courtesy of Vito Cucci
Vito Cucci, owner of Nanina’a in the Park, with Dornoch at the Saratoga Race Course in New York. said. “Barry was my contemporary, we were really good friends from fourth grade. They had come to me with an opportunity. They were proficient in the nightclub business. I was proficient in the catering part of it. They had asked me to join them in a venture.” Together, they purchased Crystals, a catering facility and night club in Linden,
and built from there. “Then we bought Nanina’s in the Park in 2002, Savoy in 2011, Chateau in 2016 and the hotel we built in 2020,” Cucci said. The group purchased Nanina from the daughter of the original owner. “They had a long history,” Cucci said. See DORNOCH, Page 6