Gia Giudice's First Restaurant Just Had Its Opening Night
Gia and Maria Sausa hosted family and friends for a preview night at Il Vero, their new Italian restaurant in Westwood, New Jersey.
Westwood, New Jersey had its own kind of season premiere this weekend. On September 19, Gia Giudice and co-owner, Maria Sausa, threw open the doors of Il Vero for a friends-and-family preview, months of construction, menu testing, and family debate finally landing on one very full room.
An Italian Old Money Night In Westwood
The theme, as Gia told New Jersey Monthly at the event, was "Italian old money," and the room delivered on it. Il Vero occupies two floors on Center Avenue, with a downstairs dining area built for lounge-style seating, an upstairs level lined in turquoise velvet booths, and a rooftop deck that gives the whole space room to spill outside. A bar seating up to 28 anchors the ground floor, pouring what the team has called elevated, intention-crafted cocktails. It's a lot of restaurant for a first restaurant, and Saturday night was the first real test of whether the room would feel as good full as it looked empty.
From left to right: Joe Gorga, Melissa Gorga, Gia Giudice, Audriana Giudice, Teresa Giudice via Taste of Reality
A Restaurant That Was Meant To Be
Il Vero has been in the works for more than a year, first announced back in January, and it's very much a two-generation project. Gia partnered with Maria Sausa, who owned the Westwood building and had previously run a restaurant called Prohibition there before deciding it was time for a change. The two, by their own account, clicked immediately. Teresa's role has been just as central, shaping the interior, weighing in on the menu, and lending the recipes that trace back to her own family table. The name itself carries the intention, Il Vero translates to "the real thing," a fitting label for a restaurant built on the actual traditions this family has cooked for decades, not a version dressed up for the cameras. "Il Vero is all about Italian traditions and keeping deep roots in our restaurant," Gia said, "and we can't wait for all of you to come and try Il Vero."
Pictured: Maria Sausa & Teresa Giudice via @ilverowestwood
A Room Full Of Familiar Faces
The guest list read like a reunion. Melissa and Joe Gorga came out to support, along with their daughter Antonia, and Gia's sisters Gabriella and Audriana Giudice were there to celebrate alongside her. Dolores Catania and Jennifer Aydin rounded out the Real Housewives of New Jersey contingent, while Real Housewives of Salt Lake City's Meredith Marks made the trip in as well. Influencer Jennifer Stano, Jerseylicious alum Tracy DiMarco, and celebrity hairstylist Lina Kidis filled out a room that felt less like a press event and more like an actual celebration among people who've known each other for years.
Pictured: Melissa Gorga & Antonia Gorga via @Melissa Gorga
What's Actually On The Menu
Behind the party, there's a real kitchen concept taking shape. The menu is guided by Chef Paco, who trained in Naples, and it leans beyond straightforward red-sauce Italian into something wider, blending northern and southern Italian technique with Mediterranean, Greek, Turkish, and Middle Eastern influences. Early standouts include a grilled octopus, chicken saltimbocca, steak pizzaiola, and an eggplant parmesan Gia has said reminds her exactly of how her grandparents, and her mother, still make it. Grilled artichokes, fried oysters, and a lemon-sauced crab pasta round out a menu built, as the family has described it, for a kind of clean, lighter Italian eating that doesn't leave you needing a nap afterward.
Il Vero's soft opening to the public is set for October 7, and if Saturday's preview was any indication, the restaurant already has exactly what a first night needs, a room full of people who actually wanted to be there. For a family that's spent nearly two decades being watched, Il Vero reads like something built to be lived in rather than filmed, a Westwood dinner table generous enough for everyone who shows up.
