Becky Bernier, owner of DeStefano’s Italian Market (Photos by Scott Merrill)
Becky Bernier’s roots in Portsmouth date back to the city’s Italian North End in the early 20th Century. Today, Bernier and her husband Michael are tapping into those roots to fuel the success of DeStefano’s Italian Market, which opened a year ago at 517 Middle St.
Prior to opening the market, Bernier worked for the Smithsonian helping people to set up trips to destinations around the globe. Several years ago, she needed a change. “I said to myself, ‘This isn’t meant to be. There’s something else for me. I’m 47 and I’ve still got a lot of life left, but I just don’t know what it is yet,’” she says.
During the pandemic Bernier was talking with Fay Ham, the former co-owner of Angelina’s, a favorite Portsmouth stop for calzones and other Italian food, which opened in 1983 on Woodbury Avenue. Angelina’s was sold in 1997, and the business continued under that name until 2005, when it closed for good.
“I call Fay my aunt, but she’s not, technically. But all Italians are family, right?” Bernier says, explaining that Fay’s daughter Julie had begun making her mother’s calzones again during the pandemic. “I’d go over to her place in Rye and pick up a calzone because they were delicious. And over the next year, Julie and I started talking more. I said to her, ‘You should be doing this full time. Everything old and awesome is gone.’ But she didn’t want that.”
However, the idea of starting an Italian market blossomed for Bernier. “Portsmouth doesn’t have an Italian market, and this poor market has been here for 60 years.”
Bernier’s Italian grandparents on her mother’s side emigrated to Portsmouth’s North End at the start of the early 1900s when a vibrant Italian neighborhood was taking shape. That neighborhood, between the Piscataqua River and Maplewood Avenue, was eliminated by a city-sponsored urban renewal project in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
DeStefano’s market offers an array of Italian delicacies, baked goods, and fresh, locally sourced ingredients. The market’s deli counter features a wide selection of cured meats, cheeses, and prepared foods from classic Italian sandwiches to gourmet charcuterie boards as well as homemade pasta dishes, soups, and salads.
DeStefano’s also carries a variety of grocery items, including those imported from Italy, as well as wine and beer. And yes, Bernier says, there are calzones. “Julie showed me how to make the calzones,” she says.
Bernier says she enjoy hearing stories from customers about the history of the neighborhood. “The stories are the most amazing,” she says. She even got a chance to meet a customer who was someone she had heard numerous stories about over the years from her family. She was tickled to finally meet him. “He was the only Irish kid living in an Italian neighborhood back in the 1960s.” For more information, visit destefanosmarket.com.