Sicily, then Brooklyn
Leo Figueroa grew up between Pompton Lakes, NJ and Acireale, Sicily. Six summers a year on the eastern flank of Mount Etna with his maternal grandparents, who ran a tavola calda that sold focaccia and arancini until the dough ran out, usually before noon.
He cooked through a culinary degree at the CIA, three years at Lilia in Brooklyn, then five at Misi, where he ran the pasta station. Lilia is where he learned to make tonnarelli the right way. Misi is where he learned that tomato is the most demanding ingredient in the kitchen.
Coming home (sort of)
His nonna died in 2024. He flew home for the funeral and ended up staying eight months — cooking for cousins, working a harvest at a small Etna winery called Tornatore, drinking wine in caves with people who'd been making wine in those caves longer than the United States had been a country.
He came back with three notebooks. One of recipes (mostly his nonna's). One of wine notes (mostly Etnean, some Friulian, the occasional Loire). One of business plans for a place that doesn't exist anywhere in Philadelphia.
Sera
The bar opened in spring 2026 in a 1,400-square-foot former tailor shop on Market Street. 28 seats, 10 at the bar. The wine list runs 42 bottles — every one direct-imported, every one from a producer making fewer than 50,000 bottles a year. The menu changes when something better shows up at the back door.
The turntable is in the corner. The records are mostly Sicilian. The espresso machine runs until close.
By the numbers
- Bottles on the list
- 42, all direct-imported
- By the glass
- 12, rotating monthly
- Pasta shapes
- Four, made fresh daily
- Seats
- 28 inside, 10 at the bar
- Hours
- Wed–Sun, 5pm til close