About Our Founders!

Claire and Frank Criscuolo are the culinary pair who founded the highly successful operation Claire’s Corner Copia, a New Haven landmark vegetarian restaurant with a national reputation. Both certified culinary professionals, Claire is a also registered nurse and Frank is a food photographer and their shared passion for delicious homemade foods coupled with her interest in nutrition and how it relates to the possible prevention of diseases, lead the way to the restaurant business in 1975. Since opening what continues to remain a thriving business, Claire has written three nationally distributed cookbooks and together they produce the column, My Vegetarian Kitchen for the New Haven Register and other Journal Newspapers, including Luxury Living Magazine. Claire has contributed to the vegetarian recipe section and Frank to the fish recipe section in cookbooks for the American Heart Association. Claire has served as an expert on panels to promote better health through better eating, for numerous organizations including: The Massachusetts School Food Service Association, The Natural Products Expo, and The Fancy Food Show, and she has appeared on The TV Food Network, Good Morning Texas, on many PBS shows, and other television and radio stations across the country. She has taught cooking classes in 15 states. Her recipes have been featured in Taste for Life Magazine, Vegetarian Life Magazine, among others. Together and apart, they have developed recipes for the Sweet Potato Board, Spectrum Organic Products, Whitson Foods company, Caravello Lemoncello, and Franklin Farms Veggie Burgers. Claire’s Corner Copia has received awards that include; Women’s Day Magazine Best Sandwich in America, Connecticut Magazine Best Of Vegetarian Restaurant and Best Quiche, New Haven Advocate Best Desserts and Best Soup. In 2010, Claire’s Corner Copia was listed by msn.com in the Top 10 Heart-Healthy Restaurants in the U.S. In 2001, trans fats were eliminated from their restaurant, something unheard of at the time, but an example of the commitment they have for healthy eating. In 2008, we began to reduce the amount of sodium in our cooking. Green initiatives include; biodegradable take out containers, corn based take out bowls and cold cups, printed with soy based inks.

In 2004, they opened Basta Trattoria, featuring organic and sustainable Italian foods. This restaurant is located right next door to Claire’s Corner Copia. Ardent supporters of organic and sustainable farming, they proudly buy and serve as much locally grown organic produce and products as possible. In 2007, Claire and Frank began growing the organic arugula and heirloom tomatoes for their restaurants from their home gardens, Giardino del Mare, as part of The Growing Connection, www.thegrowingconnection.com exhibition garden, after helping to bring this U.N. , FAO program to two New Haven schools. Philanthropy and community support is a big part of the ongoing mission at both restaurants, and the success of both restaurants has allowed the Criscuolo’s to collect and donate many thousands of dollars to charities that include: Children in Placement, Aids Project New Haven, Clifford Beers Clinic, Domestic Violence Services, Alex’s Lemonade Stand, Haitian Relief, The New Haven Diaper Bank, St. Jude’s, NOFA, Leukemia/Lymphoma Society, Ronald McDonald House, and the Connecticut Food Bank.

Respect and genuine love for their staff has been ongoing and fair wages, health insurance, and paid personal days are a part of their benefits program.

Our Mission!

Every day, we make decisions that we feel can best serve our world, through our buying of sustainable foods, our fair wages and health insurance for our treasured staff, our commitment to help to fill the needs of our community, and the respect for our earth and for everyone with whom we share it. We donate 10% of our profits to charities. Presently, we are working with The Growing Connection, a United Nations Food and Agriculture project to help alleviate world hunger by teaching the art of growing food. The first two schools we are working with are the Barnard School and the Jepson School, two wonderful magnate schools in New Haven. We feel that by teaching the art and pleasures of gardening, everyone, regardless of income, will have access to wholesome, fresh foods. During the winter months, we'll grow herbs and tender greens indoors in Earthboxes, and as the weather warms, we'll bring the boxes outdoors and grow both in and out of the boxes. Our goal is to encourage children to start vegetable gardens in their back yards and to learn the many lessons from growing; nurturing, nutrition, commitment, history, science, and math, and entrepreneurship,  while enjoying delicious and wholesome foods, fresh from the garden.

We work hard to buy sustainable and organic ingredients because we think you're worth it and because we all depend on our future and this requires caring for our earth in every way possible.

Our take out cold cups and our take out food boxes are completely compostable, and are printed with soy ink, and we've always used paper cups rather than Styrofoam, and paper bags rather than plastic for our take out foods.

We eliminated trans fats from our menus in 2001, replacing shortenings in our pie crusts with organic and trans fat free and our pie crusts remain tender yet flaky, the way you like them.

And, as we continue to learn, we will continue to make improvements to help protect our future generations.

Of course, we could not work at our mission; our love, without the ongoing support from our dedicated and amazing staff, our beloved customers, our farmers and suppliers, our treasured community partner, People's United Bank and Yale University office of New Haven and State Affairs, who always come through with sponsorship of our major fundraisers that benefit the children and families in our city. Truly, we are all in this -- together.

If we can ever change the world, and I know we can, it will be through our good work - Together!

Peace,

Claire and Frank Criscuolo