Hidden among the chain restaurants and shops at Wolf Ranch is Milano Trattoria, a family-run Italian restaurant that wants guests to feel right at home.
“A Trattoria, in Italy, is like a small restaurant inside of a house where they treat you like family,” said Gabriela Braga, whose father opened the restaurant 13 years ago. “That's why we came up with Milano Trattoria, because we want to invite you like it’s our home.”
Owner and head chef John Braga is half Italian and half Brazilian, and mastered cooking authentic Italian food while working in restaurants in New York City and New Jersey. John and his wife, Roxana, decided to move to Georgetown 20 years ago, after vacationing in Texas.
Gabriela described her moth- er as the “financial head of the house” and her dad as being “the heart of the kitchen.”
“They’re the heart and soul of the restaurant,” she said.
Gabriela started being “the helper” in the restaurant when she turned 16, right after they opened. Now, as an adult, her role has expanded to being “the floater” who helps with serving, kitchen prep and staff management.
On the menu
Milano Trattoria has classic Italian pasta dishes, pizzas, calzones, and entrees including fish, chicken and veal dishes. Linguine Pescatore is John’s favorite dish. The linguine has a light tomato basil sauce and features various types of seafood.
Something unique to the menu is Italian paella, a take on Spanish paella that has a risotto base. This gives the dish a creamer consistency.
The first weekend of every month, John makes ossobuco, which is a veal shank and vegetables served with a light tomato sauce. This draws in a lot of customers because not many restaurants in the area make the dish.
“[The veal] takes a long time for prep. But then in the end it is worth it,” John said.
On special holidays, he makes Drunken Linguini. The linguini is cooked in red wine instead of water, giving it a purple color. The dish has shrimp and scallops with mushroom, olives and roasted bell peppers.
Sun City patronage
Gabriela said big groups from Sun City have had a tradition of having their community night-out dinners at Milano Trattoria. Even when the pandemic hit, these dinners continued in a creative way.
“They came up with the idea of still having their community night out, but outside of their houses in their driveways,” Gabriela said. “They would put out a table. They would obviously chit chat with their neighbors, drink their wines or beers or whatever. Food wise, they had the idea of calling us ahead of time and placing a huge to-go order.
“The reason why we’re still here after the pandemic is because of their support.”
After receiving enough to-go orders to fill up the restaurant tables, the Bragas would fill up their cars and go do deliveries. Gabriela and her dad would challenge each other to see who could finish their deliveries first.
“If you had an aerial view of the [Sun City] neighborhood, you would see four streets, all the houses. We would stop, drop off, stop, drop off, drop off, stop, drop off, drop off.”
As they drove away, Gabriela would see the neighbors happily yelling at each other about their food— asking if they had gotten the lasagna again.
John said people from Sun City continue to come into the restaurant and enjoy his food.
“You know, they love me. I love them,” he explained. “People come over here, feel like [they’re at] home.”