Risotto is a usually substantial dish of short-grain rice that has been slowly cooked in a broth to tenderness with a wide variety of ingredients including cheeses, meats, and seafood. Made to order with a plump superfino variety of rice like carnaroli or arborio, and not a quick dish to prepare, servings for two are often a minimum order. Risotto is originally from the northern regions of Italy along the Po River valley where rice is grown. It is a common starter in place of pasta in areas of Piedmont, Lombardy and the Veneto. A fixture at ambitious restaurants in America today, risotto has actually been served at Italian restaurants here since there were Italian restaurants in America.
 
Possibly the first distinguished Italian restaurant in New York, the epicenter of the Italian experience in America, was Café Moretti that opened on Fourteenth Street near Third Avenue in 1857 by Stefano Moretti, a native of Vincenza, a city west of Venice. It was known, even a couple of decades later, for the quality and quantity of its cooking that was “always accompanied by a very fine risotto, which was about the best thing he turned out.” In fact, the earliest renowned Italian dish in New York might have been risotto. Its risottos even regularly attracted Charles Delmonico, who headed his family’s famous establishments mid-century, as this northern Italian preparation was not part of the repertoire of his French cooks. An article announcing the Moretti’s final retirement in 1903 cited customers mourning that its “famous risotto and kidneys was beyond their reach forever.” 
 
Risotto was also a very common sight across the country in the last century and before in San Francisco, another great center of Italian dining. This was because its Italian restaurateurs were mostly northern Italians like the early ones in New York. For decades, they were often known for their risotto preparations, resplendent of Piedmont and Milan: risotto with clams, veal risotto, and “risotto a la milanaise.” The legacy of the restaurateurs from the regions of Piedmont, Lombardy, and the Veneto carried on until the Second World War as well. George Rector, in his dining guide for New York from 1939, still found something “found like a weed in every restaurant with pretensions to an Italian accent. That is risotto.” It lived in the Bay Area and elsewhere on the west coast. It was always found at some Italian restaurants, if far less popular than the pasta dishes.
 
The skill involved in preparing a quality risotto, the time necessary do so, and that risotto is not part of the popular southern Italian tradition, are why it is not found at the Italian chain restaurants like Olive Garden. If risotto is served, it indicates that the restaurant is aiming (much) higher than those.
 
Today, as in the past, restaurants that offered risotto, typically have just one. At Amalfi in Houston, chef Giancarlo Ferrara, who once worked in the Veneto, offers Risotto Al Porcini Con Capesante, described as carnaroli rice simmered with porcini mushroom, served with east coast sea diver scallops caramelized with sea salt, butter and thyme, and red wine reduction sauce. Drago Centro in downtown Los Angeles has a bell pepper risotto with a crispy scallops filled zucchini blossom. The Drago’s are from coastal Messina in Sicily, not a traditional risotto area, though I saw seafood risottos on every menu near the sea on a recent trip to Sicily. At Santi in New York from star chef Michael White, its current risotto is made with the aged Acquerello rice and studded with red prawns and cuttlefish. Houston’s Poscol, which specializes in the cuisines of northeastern Italy, unusually offers four risottos on its daily menu including one with black venere rice and spicy seafood.

From a Cipriani kitchen

What is likely the best pizzeria in Houston is opening very soon in the Heights. I went to a soft-opening dinner the other day at the attractive Angie’s Pizza on 11th Street a few blocks east of Shepherd to sample some of the menu. It was fantastic throughout. Proprietor and pizzaiolo Angelo Emiliani won acclaim at pizza pop-ups and Café Louie that became Louie’s Italian American in the East End. Acclaim but not financial success, and those restaurants shuttered. Emiliani returned to work with Chris Bianco, the country’s most acclaimed pizza maker, as the culinary director the Pizzeria Bianco in Los Angeles, which carries a Bib Gourmand designation from Michelin. Emiliani knows pizza.
 
At the table, waiting for pasta and pastas, I ordered their seasonal Negroni, the White Negroni. With the pale-colored Bitter Bianco substituting for the Campari, a hint of cantaloupe melon juice and a bit of sweet Tokaji wine, served straight up, this was a much different take on the classic. Much less bitter, a touch sweet, and with a beguiling taste, it was delicious, drinking dangerously quickly.
 
The pasta, the agnolotti del plin, quickly arrived. This is the version of ravioli popular in the Langhe and Monferrato areas of Piedmont. Angie’s fills theirs with shreds of braised Texas wagyu and these sit in a good amount of jus of that beef and topped with freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano. The soft pasta pockets nicely held their shapes stuffed with the juicy, rich meat and had a really nice flavor. This was fresh pasta done very well. This agnolotti del plin was different than the many ones I have had in Piedmont in years past – it was not the deep yellow from the overload egg yolks in the pasta – but I really enjoyed it. Definitely worth an order, though there is a good chance that you’ll need some more food even with this $28 tag.
 
Following quickly on the heels of the pasta were the items of most anticipation, the pizzas. These certainly did not disappoint. Done in the neo-Neapolitan style that Chris Bianco popularized, these are made with the soft ‘00’ flour and quickly cooked in a traditional wood-burning oven. The large oven here, a Neapolitan style from Marra Forni, is impressive. Emiliani told me afterwards that the pizzas he is making – and he was tending the oven yesterday – are the same ones that Bianco’s places make, except he is offering a different and broader range of toppings. The crusts, the true test of a pizza, were spot-on, light but firm enough for the toppings and nicely cooked. Wonderful. A pizzeria cannot hide with the minimal Margherita, the pizza at the heart of Naples-style pizza. Angie’s was terrific, bolstered by the very tasty, charred crust, and atop with raw preserved tomatoes, a good amount of quality, fresh mozzarella and then the basil leaves scattered after cooking. Balanced like a margherita should be, letting the excellent tomato, mozzarella, basil and bread in proper measures to work their magic together. The busier Piccante pizza was at least as delectable. Topped with the tomatoes, mozzarella, pepperoni-like Spanish chorizo with some spice, some fennel and garlic, and also with honey. Honey works well with spice. It did here. The two pizzas disappeared in virtually no time.
 
As enjoyable as the savory foods were, maybe surprisingly so, I felt I had to try a dessert from Emiliani’s sister, Lucianna, who is an acclaimed pastry chef. The unusual Blueberry & Cream Tiramisu with jasmine tea, lychee cream, and almond cake substituting for ladyfingers was terrific. Rich, complex, not so sweet, it was one of the best desserts I have had in a while. The artisanal sundae featuring a coconut custard my friend ordered was just as enjoyable. Some people might want to visit Angie’s just for one of its handful of sweets.
 
Also, the short list of wines by the glass is well-chosen, ranging widely but all chosen with food in mind. On an Etna kick after a recent visit there, the Fessina Etna Rosso was a little surprising to see, and perfect with the pizzas. Wine is served unpretentiously in stocky glasses and maybe not overly generously. I didn’t look the full list, but it should have plenty of temptations based on what is by the glass. And the interior that seats just under a hundred is diner-like in a very nice and contemporary way, with a long bar and the massive post oak-stoked oven in a corner behind it. There is also a dark and alluring bar seating under twenty, up the stairs outside operating separately that is another attraction.
 
Angie’s is much more than a pizza joint. Not only will it be probably the best pizzeria in Houston, it will also one of the very best new restaurants to open here this year. Initially slated for opening yesterday, I was told it should be very soon.
 
Angie’s Pizza
1002 W 11th St. (a few blocks east of Shepherd), 77008
www.angiespizzapies.com

Insalata caprese, sporting the red, white and green of the Italian flag, is a light dish made in purest form just with slices of hopefully at least decent quality mozzarella and ripe tomatoes, leaves of fresh basil, and olive oil. It was created at a hotel on the island of Capri near Naples, hence the name, maybe in the 1930s. Insalata caprese began to appear in the 1960s in America and became popular as a starter at many Italian restaurants in the 1980s, then a necessity at most affordable Italian-American restaurants after the turn of the millennium. It is now found at about 40 percent of Italian restaurants around the country. And it is popular in Italy well beyond its origins. I just had a terrific version in a town on Mount Etna in Sicily made with perfectly ripe small locally sourced tomatoes and dotted with bits of fresh oregano.
 
The dish was initially made with cow’s milk mozzarella, fior di latte, which translates to "flower of milk." It has a lighter and more subtle taste than mozzarella di bufala, mozzarella made with buffalo milk that is more highly regarded, and more expensive. And there were cows just across the Sorrento Peninsula from Capri. Cow’s milk mozzarella is typical at American restaurants – if rarely the quality of that served in Italy. Sometimes bits of dried oregano and balsamic vinegar sometimes join the original quartet of ingredients. This is especially so when the mozzarella and tomatoes are of less than ideal stature.
 
Insalata caprese is one of the large number of dishes on Italian restaurants in America that have roots in the Naples area. These include ricotta-filled and tomato-sauce-topped ravioli, much of the antipasti spread, the hefty red-sauced lasagna, linguine in a white clam sauce, veal parmesan, fried calamari, spaghetti and meatballs, spumoni, eggplant parmesan, pizza, pasta with marinara sauce, veal piccata, and chicken parmesan, to name the most familiar.

The terrific insalata caprese a San Giorgio e il Drago in Randazzo on the north side of Mount Etna last month.

Salmon does not seem Italian. The fish is certainly not Italian. It is not native to the Italian coasts and rivers. But salmon is one of the most common sights on Italian restaurant menus in America, found on well over a third of them.
 
At Bari in Houston, chef Renato Di Pirro offers contemporary Italian sensibility with his attractive Faroe Salmon with a beet and blood orange marinade, on top of noodles aglio e olio, with spirulina beurre blanc. The grand Italian-American in several locations, Carbone, has Salmon Oreganata, giving salmon the old school clams oreganata treatment. The Chicago Italian-American-rooted Harry Caray’s moves well beyond the Windy City with Grilled Salmon with Coconut Rice, Mango and Red Pepper Relish. And if you can somehow overlook one of its “Amazing Alfredos,” Olive Garden has “Herb-Grilled Salmon: Filet grilled to perfection and topped with garlic herb butter. Served with parmesan garlic broccoli.”
 
Nearly every Italian restaurant here always had at a distinct American component. Restaurants source from America and serve American customers, after all. As about the most easily sourced fish with broad appeal, salmon has found a home at Italian restaurants in America for several decades. It first gained significant traction in the 1990s. Even in Italy, in fairness, salmon is actually found, at least in stores. Italy imports over 130,000 tons of salmon annually from Norway, nearly all of it seemingly destined for home kitchens. Though for the first time, during a trip to Sicily last month, I actually noticed salmon filets on a menu in Italy. It doesn’t seem en route to take holds on menus there as here. But as the world changes, who knows.

Pan Grilled Salmon Limone at Palazzo's in Houston

A stalwart in the Italian-American kitchen, lasagna, with its layers of boiled flat noodles usually encasing ricotta, mozzarella, and tomato sauce along with beef or sausage baked to a cheesy goodness, is the fifteenth most commonly seen items today at Italian restaurants in America. Lasagna as most restaurants serve it here is inspired from the pre-Lenten Carnival version from the Naples area from the past century. Here, it grew taller, meaty, much heartier, and more American. It became more firmly planted on menus over the years. Today, some restaurants proudly proclaim the number of layers of pasta in its versions. Chef Mark Ladner at the acclaimed Del Posto in New York even introduced an impossibly baroque 100-layer lasagne in 2009.
 
Lasagna only became widely found at restaurants in the 1950s, along with other baked pastas like cannelloni and manicotti. For years, it was spelled in the original Italian fashion as “lasagne.” Some restaurants have reverted to that name, offering what these calls Lasagne alla Bolognese. In its true form, this consists of wide strips of egg-rich freshly made pasta, often colored with spinach, layered in a pan with the long-cooked ragù alla Bolognese and judicious dollops of béchamel and then baked. Hearty but not enormous. This is one of the glories of the cooking of Bologna and the region of Emilia. It is distinct from the Neapolitan-originated lasagna, which is much more common in America. But on menus here, though it does appear in some restaurants, the name lasagne alla bolognese is often used rather fancifully.

The sixteenth most commonly seen items today at Italian restaurants in America is prosciutto as a starter. This is prosciutto crudo, thinly sliced ham cured in the Italian tradition. This is commonly served as part of a mix of cured meats increasingly called affettati or tagliere on menus now. Or it might appear in older school rendition, paired with melon when in season. In the New York area, prosciutto often loses a syllable and goes by “proshoot.”
 
Prosciutto is salumi, the broad term for cured meats that are ready to eat, usually pork, but also beef, wild boar, deer, and more. Prosciutto, salami, mortadella, coppa, pancetta, speck, and bresaola are some of the commonly found salumi in America. The name prosciutto refers to either cured or cooked ham. Prosciutto crudo is the good stuff. This is the more familiar cured version. Made from high-quality pork legs, which are covered in salt and left to rest, during which the salt draws out the blood and other moisture that makes it safe to eat raw. After this salting, the legs are washed, seasoned, and left to age at a controlled temperature from 14 months to three years. Prosciutto cotto is the cooked that resembles and tastes much like a familiar domestic boiled ham. Unless “prosciutto crudo” is specified on the menu, like in a sandwich, it is often this cheaper version that will be used. Both are served in slices. Made in much of northern Italy, the most well-known is Prosciutto di Parma and the slightly sweeter Prosciutto di San Daniele. Other top versions available to lesser degree in America are Prosciutto di Carpegna and Prosciutto di Modena. Though versions made domestically have improved in the last couple of decades, the Italian products are still clearly superior. For a great many years, Italian prosciutto was illegal in America. Only inferior, mostly domestic, cured ham under the name was available. In 1989, the ban on of imports of Prosciutto di Parma and Prosciutto di San Daniele was lifted. Just part of the reason why Italian dining has improved since then.
 
The long-popular prosciutto with melon and also prosciutto with figs are other items that are part of the influential Neapolitan dining tradition. The saltiness of the thin slices of ham pairs very well with the sweetness of the fruit.
 
Prosciutto, as delicious as it is, also works beyond the antipasti section. It is found in sandwiches and sometimes in pastas. Maybe most famously at the full-service restaurants, it is part of saltimbocca. After Parmesan, Marsala and piccata, this has been the most widely seen veal preparation over the years. Veal scallops are cooked in butter with white wine then topped with thin slices of prosciutto, hopefully large sage leaves and usually served flat but can be found rolled, affixed with toothpicks, or even stuffed. Dating from the 19th century in Rome, and at least the 1930s in America, this mix of tender meal, a hint of richness and acidity and then herbal piquancy is wonderful when done well and can work in the trattoria and ristorante there as well as Italian-American and Italian renditions here.

A visit to the only commercial prosciutto di Carpegna factory some years ago.

Linguine with clams in a white sauce is number seventeen among the most frequently seen items today at Italian restaurants in America. Made with white wine and lemon juice, garlic in abundance, and usually red pepper flakes to accompany small- or medium-sized clams in the shell and not all tossed over long strands of commercially made dried pasta then dotted with bits of fresh parsley, this is a bright, fresh-tasting and fairly light meal that is a favorite Italian food for many. It was the dish that my brother requested for his birthday every year when growing up, for example.
 
Found across the country, linguine and clams is a staple in New Jersey, the state where we lived when we were young. With one of the highest percentage of Italian-Americans per capita, the Garden State has long had numerous well-executed southern Italian-American dining options. This dish showcasing the bounty pulled from its long coastline is a natural there. And it was in the northeast where long strands of pasta an clams first arrived in this county.
 
The dish originated in the Naples area as spaghetti alle vongole, spaghetti and clams in translation. Quickly cooked, with a noticeable air of freshness and spontaneity, the preparation is part of the broad Neapolitan cucina povera tradition that immigrated in large numbers to America in the last century. The Philadelphia area, with the strong Neapolitan heritage of its restaurateurs might have been its initial American toehold by the 1930s. Baltimore, New York, Boston and other places near the water, and clams, were also serving the dish around mid-century. It started to become popular in the 1950s as restaurateurs influenced by the Neapolitan tradition became more widespread. And by the 1970s, pasta with clams in a white sauce was the most commonly found item in Italian restaurants across America. It was then on almost seven of ten Italian menus.
 
The clams. In the northeast, the clams are quahogs, hardshell clams. Littlenecks are the smallest, typically one to two inches, the most prized, and most likely to be seen at restaurants for the dish. Manila clams come from the Pacific and are found on the west coast. Both east and west coast clams are delicate, sweet-tasting, and meaty without being tough – if not overcooked. Canned clams has done duty at restaurants far from the eastern and western coasts, and in most homes, for years, too.
 
It is interesting to note that the dish is made with spaghetti in Italy. Spaghetti and clams is served today at restaurants along the coasts in Italy, far from its Naples area roots. In America, it is always made with linguine. It was spaghetti once here, too, but in the 1970s linguine replaced spaghetti when served with clams in America for some reason. Spaghetti is long, thin, and round. Linguine is also long, but a little thicker, mostly flat with an almost elliptical cross-section. The two dried pastas are similar, so there was not a substantive change to the dish. Both work well for it. Spaghetti comes from Naples. Linguine originates in Genoa, but is found throughout Italy. Spaghetti dominated Italian restaurant menus until the 1970s. For most inexpensive Italian restaurants until nearly then, the pasta dishes were ones made with spaghetti, one with ravioli, and maybe also manicotti and lasagna. Linguine was something a little different. Maybe it made a preparation with clams seem a little more special. That’s just speculation, though.
 
And there is also red sauce with clams, featuring tomatoes or a tomato sauce. It is often available as an another choice on the menu. It is not nearly as common, though, but can be very enjoyable when made with fresh tomatoes.

Linguine and clams at The Daily Catch in Boston's North End last summer.

Among the most frequently seen items on Italian restaurants in America, number eighteen is burrata. This is a cheese originally from the region of Puglia in southeastern Italy with a soft texture consisting of a thin outer shell of mozzarella with an inside of additional fresh cheese and cream. The elaborate process to make it begins with cream being pasteurized and cooled. Mozzarella is made coagulating milk and stretching the curds. Then that mozzarella is wrapped and molded around the cream, which has also formed curds. Usually served in the ball-like form in which it is made, this mild-tasting, moist cheese is best when very fresh and eaten with just-cracked black pepper and a drizzle of high-quality olive oil.
 
Unknown outside of its home area near the town of Adria north of Bari until the 1980s or so, it began to gain some traction in southern California with the opening of a cheese factory in the Los Angeles area in the early 1990s by native of Puglia. Most Italian restaurants then did not know what to do with it, as it was such a hyper-regional product. Chef Gino Angelini at Rex in Los Angeles, one of the country’s very best Italian restaurants at the time, refused to put it an the menu as he was unfamiliar with it. But burrata would catch on. It has became extremely popular in America in the past decade, used as a fancy mozzarella. Often as an antipasto with toasted bread, it also makes it into salads, substituting for the similar mozzarella in a Caprese, or with greens, on pizzas and into pastas. It has become common throughout Italy, too, far from its origin. I saw it almost every menu on a recent trip to eastern Sicily and had it on pizza, in a salad, and in pastas. Fresh and light and versatile, it has became another Italian restaurant fixture.

Pizza with burrata at At Canonet in Coregliano a few summers ago. It worked very well on it.

Just about everyone loves Italian food, in at least one of the many guises that it’s found throughout America. It might be spaghetti and meatballs, a fresh-tasting Caprese salad or something thickly covered in Alfredo sauce, a more currently fashionable Roman pasta preparation like cacio e pepe, pizzas, or creations expressing contemporary Italy as artful or innovative as any from a French kitchen. I’ve long been curious about what the dishes are that help to define Italian dining here. So, I recently went through the menus of what I hoped was a representative sample of Italian restaurants throughout the country to understand the most commonly found foods. These are the dishes that help draw customers out to an Italian restaurant. I cataloged items from over 50 current menus, which followed on nearly 200 from the previous few years.
 
Number twenty among the most popular items on Italian menus today is one that has been seen at restaurants for many decades, Eggplant Parmesan. This is fried slices of eggplant combined with a tomato sauce, mozzarella, grated Parmigiano – or more cheaply with Parmesan – and then baked. Still often made in many Italian-American households, this is a dish found throughout much of southern Italy, melanzane alla Parmigiana. The only connection to Parma is the Parmigiano grated on top. Referred to simply as parmigiana in Sicily where it is a much-loved staple – and where I just spent nearly two weeks – the preparation found on most Italian restaurants in America is much more often from the Neapolitan tradition, which has long influenced Italian restaurants here.
 
Eggplant Parmesan would have offspring in America. Meat was more easily available for the immigrants in the last century, and desired by customers at Italian restaurants in America. So the eggplant Parmesan treatment was naturally extended to slices of veal and then pieces of chicken. Veal Parmesan was seen on menus by the 1930s. The chicken version in the 1950s. Each of these three Parmesans would become longtime Italian-American restaurant favorites.
 
Eggplant Parmesan remains popular. It is lighter and seems to many, seems, healthier than those meat-laden dishes while still offering the classic flavors from the pairing of tomato sauce and melted mozzarella. And, not incidentally, its vegetable-heavy ingredients provide some heftier margins for restaurants.

An eggplant Parmesan - St. Pete's Foodies

Recently finishing the draft of a book about the history of Italian restaurants in this country, I thought I should watch Big Night again. I had not seen the film since I had caught in an arthouse cinema – at time when there were actually a number of arthouse cinemas around – soon after its release in 1996. With a notable cast, especially for a small-budget film that was made for just over $4 million, which included Stanley Tucci, Tony Shalhoub, Ian Holm, Isabella Rossellini, and the singer Marc Anthony in a seen-but-not-heard role, the story centers around a couple of immigrant brothers from Italy, Primo and Secondo, played respectively by Shalhoub and Tucci, who operate a struggling Italian restaurant in small town in coastal New Jersey. A central theme is the apparent irreconcilability between serving authentic Italian cooking and commercial success in 1950s America. A grand baked pasta dish, a timpano, became the movie’s most significant image, and inspired special dinners in Italian restaurants in the years afterwards. This is the endeavor that prefaced by a quarter century Tucci’s two seasons of culinary adventures throughout Italy featuring glorious cinematography. Big Night is co-written and co-starring Tucci. I happened to enjoy it less in the recent re-watch – re-watches, actually – as I now know much more about Italian dining in America over the years. Ignorance had been bliss; I found it tough not to nitpick during the recent viewings, to the detriment of my appraisal of the film. Inaccuracies and anachronisms abound in it, if not nearly to the Braveheart level.
 
Very early in the film, a customer at the brothers’ nearly empty restaurant, named Paradise, asks if her order of risotto comes with a side of spaghetti much to the chagrin of the brothers, especially Primo, the chef, played by Shalhoub, who is furious. Though not explicitly stated in the film, most of the commentary around the film assert that the brothers come from Calabria in the Italian south, where Tucci’s family’s roots are. It would have been highly unusual that restaurateurs from Calabria to have served risotto in a restaurant in America then.
 
Risotto had been frequently served at Italian restaurants until about the Second World War. The large number of Italian restaurant owners who had hailed from the northern regions where risotto was a common first course like Piedmont and Lombardy started to be replaced in numbers by southern Italians and their descendants after Prohibition. These were people from the regions, including Calabria, where pasta was king and risotto was essentially unknown, being very far from the rice-growing areas in northern Italy. Though not alluded to in the film, it could have been that the brothers might have experienced cooking and serving risotto while working in a restaurant elsewhere in Italy before emigrating. Later in the film, Primo is shown calling an uncle in Rome who has an eatery. There might have been some restaurants in Rome serving risotto then, but it might have been a single preparation or two from what I have seen looking at a number of postwar restaurant menus from Roman restaurants. Dried pasta was at the Roman heart that showed in the trattorie and ristoranti, often written as “ascicutte” on the menus then. Risotto was, and still is, an afterthought in the Eternal City. Maybe they worked not in Rome but in Milan, Turin, or even Venice, much less jammed with tourists then. Maybe. The film is set just before the great migration in Italy durn the 1950s from the south to the northern industrial cities, though. Primo does describe the joy of the lush lasagne alla bolognese to his crush played by Allison Janney. Maybe Primo had worked in Bologna, which is north of Rome. But, known as La dotta, La grassa, La rossa, the prosperous university city of Bologna is famously the epicenter of fresh pasta that gives scarcely a thought given to anything with rice.
 
The use of risotto early in the film and during the great feast later was, most likely, because risotto was a dish that started to gain traction at the more expensive Italian restaurants in America in the 1990s when the film came out. It was a symbol to many diners at that time of authentic Italian food, something more sophisticated than the numerous spaghetti dishes that ruled menus for decades. Risotto was also very familiar to the film’s culinary consultant and Tucci’s tutor in preparing for the role, Gianni Scappin, who was from the Veneto in northern Italy, another northern region where risotto is typically served.
 
Also, no matter how clueless a customer might have been about risotto, they would not have expected a side of spaghetti. The risotto dishes, if any, on menu during the 1950s would have been listed among the pastas under a title like “Farinacei,” “Farniceous” or “Italian Paste.” It would have been clear on the menu. A small pasta dish in addition to the main choice would have been served typically just with a full dinner option, a legacy of the fixed menu table d’hôte meals that were the default option at most Italian restaurants up until the war. Then they would not have expected meatballs with it. Spaghetti and meatballs starting to become really popular during the 1950s, but as the main dish for someone visiting a restaurant, never as a side.
 
After that slow dinner service, the restaurant closes early and Tucci’s Secondo makes the very short walk across the street to another small Italian restaurant, but that is busy and lively, Pascal’s Italian Grotto. Midcentury was still a time when ”Grotto” or “Italian Gardens” was often included in the name of an Italian eatery. Ian Holm plays the proprietor Pascal. He is presented as a sellout, a restaurateur denigrating the true cuisine of Italy in the pursuit of commercial success. Spaghetti and meatballs are shown a couple of times as the camera spans the restaurant and Pascal prepares a flaming dish for a table. Flamboyant and gauche, he is shown as a stark contrast to the staid and serious Secondo. Holm’s often histrionic and strangely enunciated performance seemed unnatural to me when I first watched it. Even more so in the rewatches. Speaking in chopped, heavily accented English, the accent presumably coming from his learning the language as a native Italian speaker. But his English sounds much different to me to than any of the many native Italian speakers I’ve talked and listened to over the years. He also looks to be wearing an American school ring on his right hand, not something you see Italian immigrants with. But Holm’s Pascal is given some very sage, and true, advice to offer to Secondo: the customer doesn’t want to eat something that he has never seen; “give the people what they want.” Then the restaurant can serve the more adventurous or authentic food. This has been a truism in restaurants almost no matter the cuisine. He then offers to get the popular Italian-American musician Louis Prima, who happens to be performing nearby, to come to their restaurant, which will provide some much needed publicity. Spoiler alert: this gesture is rather hollow.
 
Before that spiel, Secondo walks past a Faema brand espresso machine. This type of horizontally mounted machine was not introduced until in 1961, several years after the film’s setting. That particular model even seems to be from the 1970s. Espresso, becoming much more common in the US when the film was made, is not treated accurately in the film. Later, before the first hour is out, at the brothers’ restaurant, Primo quickly and easily works a giant, old pre-war espresso machine, which is strangely silent, with just a simple push of a level. His espresso was made much more easily and more quickly than a Nespresso at home today. This was quite unlike how the old machines actually worked. These required some time plus experience and skill in getting out an espresso from the contraption while avoiding getting splashed with scalding-temperature water.
 
Concerning other beverages, spirits and wine are not treated so accurately, either. When Secondo heads to Pascal’s restaurant, Primo walks over to his barber friend, who offers him grappa. The distilled grappa was not a product of southern Italy, presumably the birthplace of the barber, too. At the time, grappa was almost solely popular in its home area in the region of the Veneto. Very few people from there came to the US prior to when this film was set. And grappa was not commercialized until after the war and did not make it to American restaurants until the 1980s or later. In restaurants during when the film was set, there would be cognac, scotch, bourbon, Benedictine and from Italy, Strega and anisette. There was never grappa. It would have been the widely available anisette, popular with southern Italians, that the barber would have shared with Primo. The barber also doesn’t seem to mind that Primo makes a call to Italy – at about 10 PM or so in the scene, about 4 AM in Rome – on his phone. International rates were not inexpensive then.
 
Then the wines. The half-dozen or so bottles of red wine that are placed on the table for the feast noticeably sport a purple-colored DOC color on the necks. DOC is the Denominazione Origine Controllata system implemented by the Italian government in an attempt to improve wine quality. That started in 1966, a decade after the film’s was set. That purple color tag was used for red wines until 2011. Those bottles are Villa Antinori Chianti, a big-name brand that has been around since 1928. Its front is displayed in a scene later on. It is clearly a bottle from the 1990s, when the movie was filmed, much different than the brand’s labeling a couple of decades earlier, much less from the 1950s.
 
The feast made for Prima is elaborate, gorgeously filmed, and lengthy, even if Primo and Secondo have very little assistance and are away from the kitchen at varying extended times during the preparation of the many dishes. Waiting for Prima, the dinner starts late. There does not appear very much in the way of antipasti in the movie, a big part of the glories of the southern Italian tables, and perfectly suited to late-starting dinners. A portion of it is only shown is when Secondo is explaining to a seated guest a small plate with focaccia and crostini. Oddly two breads. Crostini, a Tuscan preparation, and its bready brethren bruschetta were never found on menus in midcentury America. These only started showing up in the 1980s. But crostini was popular in Tuscan restaurants where Tucci trained and Scappin worked.
 
When the guests are seated and the feast properly begins, its first course is prefaced by the words on screen, “La Zuppa,” the soup. The thin-looking soup, mostly broth, would have been a common way to start a meal. But a zuppa is a thick soup, “semi-liquid” according to Italian Cuisine by the master restaurateur Tony May. What was served was minestra. Then comes three versions of risotto, misspelled on the screen as “Il Risotto” instead of “I Risotti,” the risottos. These are followed by the elaborate, baroque baked pasta timpano that was modeled on a Tucci family dish from Calabria. Guests are starting to get full. The secondi, the meats and fish courses follow. There are roast chicken on one tray. A large whole fish is another – something never found on Italian menus then – and finally an impressive roast pig. The side dishes, contorni in Italian, given no introduction are interspersed with the proteins: artichokes, tomatoes, asparagus, and potatoes. It is a tremendous amount of food, even if Prima and band were there. It ends with “I Dolci,” the sweets, which are rather mostly fruits and nuts in the Italian fashion, with amaretto cookies. The trick with the fired then floating amaretto wrappers is shown, which is always fun to witness. The pears poached in red wine are shown after all the guests have left. It is a dish from Piedmont and Valle d’Aosta in Italy’s northwest that crossed to America in the last decade or so of the last century, something else that the brothers would not have served. Another spoiler alert. The wait for Prima and turns out like that for Godot. The brothers give up at 3 AM. Everyone was having fun for six or seven or so hours before acknowledging that there would no Prima with his band. 
 
It was fun time for most. At least everyone enjoyed the foods. The choice of those dishes were colored by Tucci’s roots in Calabria – where one of my great-grandmothers was born – possibly his time in Florence with his family when young, certainly his work in the kitchen of the popular Tuscan restaurant Le Madri in New York, the Italian restaurant trends of the 1990s, and the influence of the film’s consulting chef. No matter the provenances, the dishes do look enticing throughout Big Night. What is served is just not terribly historically accurate for a restaurant, especially one from a couple of Calabrian brothers.

It’s been over a year-and-a-half since I’ve revisited this, about one of the most popular restaurant dishes actually not just at Italian-themed establishments, but also at any type of restaurant. Chicken Parmesan is the most popular of any restaurant chicken dish, at least according to a fairly recent poll.
 
The previous update was sparked by reading a piece about Ken Auletta, the longtime New Yorker writer  who has had an obsession in finding excellent Chicken Parmesan preparations, and part of a group of guys who have been foraging the Italian-American eateries of the New York area for years in search of quality versions. For Auletta, a “test of a good Southern Italian restaurant is whether their chicken or veal parmigiana had a good sauce, the breading is crisp and has not been drowned in sauce, and the chicken or veal is not so thin it tastes like cardboard.”

Chicken Parmesan is an American creation that grew from the eggplant parmigiana preparation from southern Italy and Sicily, with the meatier chicken substituting for the less caloric eggplant at its core. Veal Parmesan came first, at least by the 1930s while Chicken Parmesan debuted on restaurant menus at least a couple of decades later. Veal Parmesan is certainly a much better dish – though the version at the venerable Ralph’s near the Italian Market in Philadelphia a few weeks ago was disappointing – and my favorite dish as a kid, but Chicken Parmesan is ubiquitous throughout the country, the veal version much less so. Industrially produced, widely distributed, easily affordable, and easy to cook with, abnormally large, if typically fairly tasteless, chicken breasts provide the key reason for the popularity of Chicken Parmesan. The dish at restaurant is a chicken breast or two – rarely pounded very thin – breaded and pan-fried, sometimes baked, and topped with mozzarella and maybe some other Italian-inspired cheeses and melted in an oven, and served in a tomato sauce usually with a side of pasta, likely spaghetti, also in that tomato sauce. You know what it is. And even longtime New Yorkers and Italian-Americans like Ken Auletta might really like it if done well.

People like Italian-American food, in even the most minor key. And here is what Chicken Parmesan will currently cost at the biggest Italian-American restaurant chains:

• Bertucci’s – $24.99, served with spaghetti in tomato sauce – 13 locations
• Biaggi’s – $23.25, served with something called “Three-Cheese Alfredo Rigatini” – 16 locations
• Bravo! Italian Kitchen – $26.99, served with herbed linguini; – 23 locations
• Brio Italian Grille – $28, it is called the fancier, slightly Frenchified Chicken Milanaise, but it is Chicken Parmesan; served with herbed pasta – 25 locations
• Bucca di Beppo – $33.99 for a portion that feeds three, $11.33 per person – 69 locations
• Johnny Carino’s – $21.99, served with spaghetti with tomato sauce – 24 locations
• Carrabba’s Italian Grill – $24.49, Served with your choice of side – 212 locations
• Fazoli’s – $11.99, served with spaghetti with marinara sauce and two breadsticks – 196 locations
• Il Fornaio – $39 – served with spaghetti pomodoro – 18 locations (only offered in two, though)
• Maggiano’s Little Italy – $26, served with spaghetti and marinara sauce – 52 locations
• North Italia – $26, served with “parmesan rigatoni” – 40 locations
• Olive Garden – $21.29, served with a side of spaghetti – 943 locations
• Romano’s Macaroni Grill – $22, served with spaghetti and tomato sauce – 17 locations
• The Old Spaghetti Factory – $22.75, served with a side of spaghetti with tomato sauce – 41 locations
• The Spaghetti Warehouse – $18, served with spaghetti with tomato sauce, bread and salad or soup – 5 locations

 
The average price is just about $22, $2 more than in February 2024. Interestingly, the number of locations for each of the chains decreased when I did this in February of last year with one exception, Olive Garden.
 
Chicken Parmesan is also a common menu item on Houston area Italian-American menus. It will average about $3.50 more than the national chains, but will hopefully be tastier. Certainly it will at some of these:

• B.B. Italia – $26
• Carrabba’s, The Original – $28.39, served with a side of fettuccine Alfredo
• Cavatore – $26, served with a side of penne with tomato sauce
• Ciro’s – $22.95, served with a side of fettuccine Alfredo
• Coppa – $29, served with a side of fettuccine with a cheese sauce
• D’Amico’s – $26, served with a side of fettucine Alfredo or spaghetti with tomato sauce
• Enoteca Rossa – $32, served with side of pasta
• Fratelli’s – $18 (only on the lunch menu), served with a side of pasta with tomato sauce
• George’s Pastaria – $24.95, served with a side of pasta
• Grotto – $27, served with a side of angel hair pasta with tomato sauce
• Italianio’s – $14.95
• Marmo – $30
• Mia Bella – $26, served with a side of pasta
• Milton – $30, served with a side of spaghetti
• Numero 28 – $24, served with a side of spaghetti
• Palazzo’s – $22, served with a side of fettuccine Alfredo
• Passarella – $21.95, served with a side of spaghetti with tomato sauce
• Piatto – $24.95, served with a side of fettuccine Alfredo
• Primo Pasta – $18.95, served with a side of fettuccine Alfredo
• Rocco’s – $18.95, served with a side of fettucine Alfredo
• Trattoria Sofia – $28
• Triola’s Kitchen – $28, served with a side of rigatoni with tomato sauce
• Zammitti’s – $21.75, served with side of linguine
• Zanti’s –  $32, served with a side of pasta

 
The version at Maggiano's Little Italy

The first, and most widespread type of Italian-American cold sandwich is one on a typically eight- to ten-inch fresh loaf of bread about three inches wide sliced lengthwise and filled with a copious amount of Italian or Italian-style cold cuts, or boiled ham, slices of cheese, usually Provolone, and tomatoes, often shredded lettuce, maybe preserved peppers, plus a dash of olive oil and another of vinegar. Never mayonnaise, at least on the East Coast. The combination features tartness from the vinegar, the bite of peppers, satiating meatiness, the slightly crisp texture of the lettuce, the aroma and taste of recently baked, fresh and usually crusty bread, and often some residual oil on hands or clothing. At least when served fully sized, its origins as a laborer’s lunch are easy to see. These sandwiches, often stuffed to the brim and wrapped in paper to contain the bounty, reflected the abundance of America, not the restraint of Italy. Whether named hero, submarine, hoagie, grinder, Italian, spuckie, zep, or torpedo, these are fairly similar regional variations created in the northeast by southern Italian immigrants or their offspring.  In one version or another, most frequently with the “submarine” or “sub” name – often to the dismay of many Philadelphians – these are now found throughout the country in various forms and level of quality, courtesy of the business magic of franchising. The name, sub for these, appears to have originated in northern New Jersey in the early 20th century.  The origin stories are often not so clear – for both the creations and their names – but it seems that several of the familiar cold sandwiches on a long roll developed independently in several areas in the northeast after the arrival of Italian immigrants.
 
The first of these sandwiches made and served to immigrant labor from southern Italy seems to have been in the west side Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of New York in the late 19th century at a grocer called Petrucci’s. From the bowels of New York it spread south to other Italian enclaves on the island than across the East River to Brooklyn and then Queens and north to the Bronx. It took a few decades to acquire the name “hero.” That seemingly came from famed New York Herald Tribune food writer Clementine Paddleford in 1936, who wrote about the large sandwich: “You'd have to be a hero to finish one.” Another very early version was created in the unlikely town of Portland, Maine, the Italian sandwich, a name that carries until today. Descriptively named for its creator, Giovanni Amato in 1902, and most of the earliest customers, it consists of fresh bread casing slices of cold cuts, cheddar cheese – using what could be sourced – and tomatoes, with green peppers, spicy pickles, olives, onions, and oil with salt and pepper. What began as a cart, Amato’s Sandwich Shop is still open today, and in a number of locations. 
 
Philadelphia’s favorite sandwich, the hoagie, got its start at DiCostanza's Grocery, just south of the city in Chester, in the mid-1920s according to most of the reliable sources, but without the odd name.  As for that, it could be that a certain Al DePalma was walking down busy Broad Street when two men holding huge sandwiches passed near, he heard one say “you have to be a hog to eat one of those.”  A few years later, DePalma remembered the vignette when he opened a small restaurant, and named his long sandwiches at DePalma’s, likely modeled from others in the area, as "hoggies.” This vignette may not be entirely true, but Al DePalma apparently deserves the credit for naming the iconic sandwiches in a commercial sense, at least in its initial moniker.  The original version probably consisted of Italian-style cold cuts, cheese, and lettuce garnished with a choice among tomatoes, onion, peppers and pickles, and slathered with oil, mustard, and, unusual for Italian-run places, mayonnaise. Its success drew many imitators. After the Second World War, the sandwich name became a “hoagie,” reflecting the distinctively pleasant Philadelphia accent featuring extended vowels, “HO-gie.”  This type of sandwich has taken deep root.

The Italian with some extra hot peppers from Primo Hoagies. Quite tasty.

It seems for a while now that supermarkets and big liquor stores have aggressively featured panettone: palettes of them in at least a dozen different brands and a number of sizes. Panettone is the Italian tall, dome-shaped cake that makes its appearance before Christmas. Originally from Milan, it is popular throughout much of Italy during the Christmas season, at least the lands north of Rome. Somewhat like an Italian version of fruitcake, if much tastier even in industrialized form, it is big business now, and makes for a pleasant dessert or a semi-sweet accompaniment to coffee or something stronger.
 
Panettone is actually a little more versatile than you might expect. This is good to know if you end up with plenty of it left after Christmas and tired of eating it with coffee or a liqueur, tempted to toss out the remainder of the often substantially sized box. At an Italian Expo event here some years ago, a chef who had worked in Milan served an amazingly simple sandwich from his restaurant’s booth. It was mascarpone slathered between a couple of slices from a panettone. It was very good, and extremely easy to replicate at home, and affordable. An inexpensive one kilo (two-pound-plus) panettone can be had for $10 or so. I picked up one at Kroger the other for just $6.99. Even better with the slices of panettone are toasted.
 
Another use was suggested to me by famed restaurateur Piero Selvaggio of Valentino a while back, especially for somewhat past-prime panettone. It makes the base for terrific French toast. Something I’ve done a number of times. Or, more accurately, that might be Milanese toast.

Italian restaurants, which I consider too often…. Though Italian restaurants, or a fair number, generally became more truly Italian over the years, several widespread aspects of the Italian restaurants in America were not found in Italy. These included a small bowl or cruet of olive oil set on the table along with a basket of bread for dipping into the oil. This seems to have begun in the 1980s. It might have been one of the innovations of ground-breaking New York restaurateur Pino Luongo, whose Tuscan-inspired restaurants included Coco Pazzo that once had a location in Houston. Though the concept of dipping raw vegetables into oil, pinzimonio, is found in parts of Italy, the similar use of bread is not, at least the way it is done in this country. Olive oil for the bread on the table was a crowd-pleaser and quickly spread, becoming expected by most diners, even if it was an additional freebie for the owner and a way for customers to waste a lot of decent olive oil. It became emblematic of Italian restaurants here – as much as soft, overcooked pasta served with a lot of sauce – and was resisted only by those able to adhere more closely to the Italian model.
 
If presented in a bowl or plate, the olive oil was often studded with herbs, garlic and sometimes industrial balsamic vinegar. The use of the sweet vinegar became another hallmark of American Italian dining. Balsamic vinegar in its truest, most artisanal form, was nearly unknown outside of its home in and around the north-central city of Modena in Emilia-Romagna until it began to be imported into the U.S. by Williams Sonoma in the late 1970s and then used at the most discerning restaurants a few years later. As it took years to make small amounts, it was expensive, but its concentrated flavor went a long way as a condiment. As the original aged versions gained traction with Americans and the American press, commercial vinegars bearing the name “balsamic vinegar,” tasting vaguely similar and far less pricey, began to be produced. It was with these that most American diners grew to enjoy, both with bread and more so mixed with salads.
 
Predating both the table presentation of olive oil and the familiarity with this uniquely Italian-esque vinegar was the Italian steakhouse, at least in America. There are no steakhouses in Italy. Outside of the Florentines and later other Tuscans, there has been no steak tradition in Italy. In fact, the bistecca in the famous bistecca alla fiorentina comes from the English “beefsteak” because there was no suitable Italian name for the dish. “Being American is to eat a lot of beef steak,” as Kurt Vonnegut rightly observed, and Italian-Americans found it both profitable and enjoyable to serve steak. The first might have been The Palm in Manhattan that opened in the 1920s – very unfortunately, subsequently Landry-ized in recent years – even if it did not consciously start out as primarily a steakhouse. It was later joined, especially after 1990, by numerous others primarily in the northeast and Midwest. These served similar preparations and steaks as the typical grand American steakhouses. What made them “Italian” was that the menu was filled out with a number of rote Italian-American dishes, and usually the restaurant’s full name included the phrase, “Italian Steakhouse.” They could sell to customers wanting two different popular cuisines.

Frank Sinatra was a reportedly a big fan of one of the longtime Italian steakhouses, Gene & Georgetti’s in Chicago, which is still around and quite adept, with old school charm and a hearty menu updated with the times. Sinatra was reportedly a big fan of countless Italian-themed eateries. In fact, “Frank Sinatra ate here” might only be rivaled by “George Washington slept here” in the northeast. According to the dedicated road food warriors, Jane and Michael Stern, who would know better than anyone, “there are countless places between Philly and Boston (not to mention some in Vegas and Palm Springs) where, if you judged by the pictures on the wall, you'd have to say that Frank was the management's best friend.”   A tree of decades-old Italian-American eateries in the Los Angeles area can trace their heritage back to Sinatra beginning with Hollywood’s Villa Capri. Though Sinatra was, by all regards, a terrific customer known for his extremely generous tipping, he also brought a tremendous amount of star power and glamour. He was, after all, one of the most famous Americans since the time he burst on the scene in the early 1940s until his death in the late 1990s. The advertisement of a restaurant’s connection to Sinatra was and continues to be a recognizable feature of the Italian restaurant here, just as it once was with previous Italian-American heroes, Joe DiMaggio and Enrico Caruso.
 
Sinatra’s fixture is more permanent, because Sinatra’s music – and in some sense his persona – has become intertwined with Italian-American food and joyous carousing. Sinatra might be as much a part of the American Italian restaurant as red sauce. His songs and those of the other popular Italian-American singers interpreting the Great American Songbook after the Second World War have become a requisite part of the soundtrack of Italian-themed restaurants. Sinatra was just the best and has been the most played, but he is often joined by Dean Martin, Tony Bennett, Louis Prima, Bobby Darin, Jerry Vale, Jimmy Rosselli, Mario Lanza, Perry Como, Frankie Laine, and Vic Damone as part of the ambiance when out at an Italian restaurant.
 
Though American-bred singers seemed natural complements to the restaurants serving the food, what might be surprising is the disdain that the vast majority of Italians have to Italian food with any American concessions. Most Italians absolutely cannot stand Italian-American food, or at least they say so. This seems to stem largely from the fact that Italians have possibly the narrowest palates in the world, or at least they did in decades past. That and their intense local pride fostered by history and geography. They might complain bitterly about the preparations of dish a town over in Italy if it is slightly different than their own. Of course, they are typically quick to criticize restaurants here.
 
No matter. Italian restaurants in America need to be in business not necessarily to be that Italian.  

From an Italian steakhouse chain in the Midwest; a steak with some seemingly Italian-American touches

As there are so many delicious foods to be found in hopelessly unattractive strip centers throughout the Houston area, it should be no surprise that excellent sandwiches can be had at one in a small place that opened this summer in Spring Branch, on Campbell just north of I-10. The surprise is that sandwiches are somewhat of an afterthought there. Primarily a fresh pasta shop also selling accompanying sauces, Casetta Cucina, has just three sandwiches. These are rather unique, Italian sandwiches made with the unusual Tuscan schiacciata bread, a fairly dense focaccia-like bread made in-house that gives the assemblages a sturdy, delicious base. The unusual name with its assault of consonants might give pause when customers go into the shop for pasta and see the little placard on the counter for sandwiches bearing this name. It is pronounced skiah-CHA-tah. Not too hard.
 
If you enjoy the sandwiches in Italy, from the Autogrill or lesser autostrade stops or in cafés there in the afternoon, or just enjoy Italianate versions anywhere, you'll really like the ones here featuring top-notch ingredients used intelligently and judiciously. I’ve liked them even more than the ones I’ve had over the years in Italy. And these are very similar, if just a little different because of the bread. There is the Caprese with rich buffalo milk mozzarella and tomato slices bolstered with a little bit of pesto, another featuring prosciutto, with the mozzarella and bitter arugula, and the third with pistachio-studded mortadella, arugula and for an additional couple of dollars, melted creamy, buttery robiola from the Italian cheesemakers at Lira Rossa a couple of hours west of Houston. Along with noticeable olive oil, each is topped large grains of sea salt that add a very welcome flavor to the mix. Each of the three is very good, though the mortadella one has been my favorite. Just those three now, I’ve been told a Sicilian hamburger is on the way. Whatever that might be, I’m sure it will be worth a try, at the very least.
 
Casetta Cucina is mostly a spot to pick up pasta fresca, pasta made by hand. The pasta-making station greets you as you enter, situated prominently behind the counter separated by glass with either owner, Francesco Casetta, or another worker plying away, with stacked, big bags of Caputo flour from Italy visible on the floor. You might have seen Casetta at one of the weekend farmers markets selling pasta. Once the executive chef at Tony's, he certainly has the skills to craft a quality sandwich. More so, since he making the bread.

There is not much to the place in terms of dining in, just a couple small tables or so out front and another in hallway, but the sandwiches travel very well back to the office or home.

Casetta Cucina
1024 Campbell Road (just north of I-10), 77055, (346) 546-8438
casettacucina.com
Monday-Friday, 9AM to 6PM