Pittsfield — Well, that didn’t take long! In just three short years, Pittsfield eatery Sibaritas has outgrown its 1264 East Street location and is bound for 27 McKay Street (also known as 75 North Street).
Since last summer, the popular Italian restaurant has been turning away about 20 patrons daily in its 49-person-capacity space and is set to move in September into the larger site formerly occupied by Trattoria Rustica, said owner Megan Gomez, who runs the establishment with husband Chef Ronald Gomez.
A Berkshire native, Megan Gomez returned home from college and met and married Ronald Gomez before the two had an epiphany: “Why are we working so hard for somebody else,” she recalled. When the pandemic hit, the couple decided to put their restaurant plan into action and found, albeit small, the “perfect place to start” their new venture, Megan Gomez said. “If it doesn’t work, what do we have to lose?” she said, quoting her spouse. Word of the new restaurant soon caught on, with patrons touting the food and service.
“Now we’ve outgrown our space, three years later, that we never thought would happen,” Megan Gomez said.
A self-taught chef, Ronald Gomez spent his early childhood in Ecuador before relocating to Chile when he was 16 years old, where “he fell in love with cooking and food,” Megan Gomez said. Although Sibaritas’ menu is classified as Italian, Ronald Gomez has added his mark on its dishes. “It’s not authentic Italian; it’s Italian with this new, modern twist,” Megan Gomez said. “I tell everybody, ‘It’s love, it really is,’” she said. “You won’t find another chef who cares as much for his plates as he does.”
The approximately 12-month search for a larger location hasn’t been easy for the Gomez family, with Ronald and Megan putting in offers at other sites that didn’t prove right for the eatery. “We’re a big believer in ‘everything happens for a reason,’” Megan Gomez said. “If it didn’t happen, it wasn’t for us or it wasn’t the right time.”
The McKay Street space had been vacant since March when it closed suddenly, she said, with Megan and Ronald Gomez cleaning up the space before adding a coat of fresh paint, new lighting, and other improvements. But, just as the East Street location was iconic for housing Elizabeth’s restaurant, Megan Gomez is up to the task of creating the Sibaritas “vibe” in the new site.
“As much as Trattoria was good, we want to be ourselves, we need to make it our own,” she said, adding that the menu won’t include any of Trattoria Rustica’s fare. “We’re not taking over that restaurant. We don’t have any association with those businesses, we just have the space they left behind.”
The McKay Street restaurant carries over the same warm, cozy atmosphere that the East Street site possessed, with that ambiance now in the center of downtown Pittsfield and able to draw from theater customers. “It checked all of our boxes that we were looking for,” Megan Gomez said.
Sibaritas fans will be treated to new menu items in the fall, including roast duck, a specialty that has its own mailing list to alert diners the few times a year the dish is served now. Ronald Gomez is also planning to feature rack of lamb and a pasta dish from Sibarita’s “secret menu”: homemade pappardelle in a truffle cream sauce with spicy fennel sausage, portobello mushrooms, and fresh spinach.
Despite being one of the most popular dishes in the restaurant, the Create-Your-Own Pasta won’t be available in the new kitchen. According to Megan Gomez, the couple underestimated how difficult that offering was to serve since every plate is made to order, a hardship in the current kitchen housing only three burners should each guest at several tables expect their own creation.
Along with her father, the couple has been working to transform the new site since their lease began July 1. The McKay Street venue boasts about 12 more tables available for patrons than the East Street location, “enough to accept the reservations that we can’t accept now,” Megan Gomez said. The single floor of the new site is also a plus for diners who can’t readily access the steep stairs in the current location, she said.
“We need to stay in Pittsfield; Pittsfield needs us,” Megan Gomez said.
