Margherita Ciccone of Sorrento Ristorante stands in front of her business’ packaged sauces. Credit: Courtesy Photo / H-E-B

Longtime Alamo Heights eatery Sorrento Ristorante’s bottled pasta sauces are a step away from landing shelf space at H-E-B.

Sorrento’s three sauces — a puttanesca, a marinara and a creamy house specialty version — landed on the San Antonio-based grocer’s 10th Annual Quest for Texas Best finalist list. That makes the 22-year-old restaurant the sole Alamo City contender for a shot at a $25,000 grand prize plus coveted shelf space at the statewide supermarket empire. H-E-B’s team reviewed more than 600 products from 132 Texas cities in this year’s contest, officials said. Besides the Sorrento sauces, the 10 finalists range from a sparkling agua fresca to tanning oil to yogurt.

Sorrento owner Margherita Ciccone told the Current the idea to package the restaurant’s sauces came from a customer who said he wanted to deliver them straight to H-E-B’s CEO. A few weeks after she began bottling them, officials with the grocery company contacted her about participating in Quest for Texas Best.

“I have always had it in my heart to see our sauce on H-E-B shelves,” she said.

In a statement, H-E-B officials praised Sorrento’s sauces for being “authentically made with few ingredients that create a big taste.”

A panel of judges will select the four winning products August 9 in Dallas.

Subscribe to SA Current newsletters.

Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter| Or sign up for our RSS Feed

Related Stories

This article appears in Jul 12-25, 2023.