I Visited The Old-School NYC Italian Restaurant Loved By The Rat Pack

Pasquale Scognamillo and his family immigrated from Naples to America in search of a better life. He accomplished this at Patsy's, at an eponymous restaurant he opened in 1944 serving up old world cuisine to his new one. It still endures to this day. 

This white table cloth restaurant is a beat off Broadway and shines Patsy's good name in bright, neon lights at 236 W 56th Street in Manhattan. In the eternity of its history, the Scognamillo family has continued to dish out Patsy's classic dishes, carried on from son Joe, and now grandson Sal, who not only serves up delicious plates filled with pasta, seafood and meat, but also a bright smile to his customers, making them feel as if they are a part of his family.

Tasting Table received the rare honor to sit down with Sal to chat and chew about Patsy's rich history past and present. The walls of the restaurant have heard and seen so much, where Frank Sinatra and The Rat Pack lived it up and help make the place a must visit, the Yankees celebrated a World Series Championship, and even where the cast of "The Godfather" broke bread as a family for the first time. Its list of famous patrons, from Tony Bennett to the Clooneys and the Stillers, could fill its own book of Who's Who, and even gives Delmonico's a run for its money as a New York dining destination. Pull up a seat, and enjoy this textual feast about this institution that is still serving the Chicken Contadina that Johnny Carson and Brooke Shields loved to eat up, and the stuffed calamari that stuffed both Dom DeLuise and Leonard Nimoy. Buon appetito!

In the early 1950s, Frank Sinatra found his life at a crossroads. He was separated from his actress wife Ava Gardner, had just been dropped by his longtime label Columbia Records, and felt that his former fans turned into fair-weather fans, not even wanting to say hello. Sinatra found a welcoming ear in Patsy himself, who assured him better days were ahead. 

A lonely Sinatra happened to visit Patsy's the day before Thanksgiving, and wanted to come back the next day, having asked Patsy to reserve him a table for one. Trouble was, that's a day Patsy's was normally closed, and Patsy didn't have the heart to tell him. Alas, Patsy summoned his staff and told them to come in with their families for Thanksgiving. While the staff was initially dispirited, they understood the importance of the bond between the crooner and the restaurant. The Scognamillos also invited some other friends and family to help fill out the place.

On 3 p.m. that Thanksgiving day, Sinatra came in and asked for anything but turkey. He was served a sort of Italian equivalent — chicken rollatini with spinach stuffing. While the crowd was very sparse, Patsy reminded Sinatra that many people eat at home on the holiday, and he enjoyed himself nonetheless. Turns out, Sinatra didn't know at the time how generous Patsy was being with his time and talents. Sal recounted that Sinatra "found out later in life that my grandfather opened just for him. And he never forgot that. What was already a great friendship, was even more solid."

In 1977, the New York Yankees were on top of the world after vanquishing the Los Angeles Dodgers to capture the World Series title. To celebrate, manager Billy Martin arranged dinner for the team at Patsy's upstairs party room. When they arrived, Martin was confused why he wasn't being shown to his usual table, in a curtained-off room. Scognamillo recalled this tale, in which he told Martin that the room was "reserved for someone really important." Martin was wondering who was bigger than the guy who just led the Yankees to a World Championship.

When Martin saw Frank Sinatra coming up the secret back entrance stairs, along with guests like James Bond portrayer Roger Moore, he not only realized who was more important than him, but he became starstruck too. John warned Sinatra that the Yankees were in the building, and at first didn't believe him, saying "and the British are coming," too. Sinatra had just flown in and wasn't exactly in the mood to have an audience with the team, especially being a Dodgers fan, but relented and agreed to at least see Martin.

Sal, who was a giddy 15-year-old at the time, remembered Martin was so excited that he jumped on the table and told the entire team they were going to meet The Chairman. Sal said the line to meet him was "like going to confession. They came in this curtain, said hello, and came out that curtain. 50 guys, Sinatra couldn't have been nicer." When it came time to settle the bill, Martin found that there wasn't one, as Sinatra had picked up the tab.

While Sinatra often came in for a quiet meal, sometimes there was reason for good cheer and much more merriment, like for acting great Jimmy Cagney's 75th birthday in 1974. The Rat Pack was on hand to celebrate, complete with Dean Martin singing "Happy Birthday." When things started to get a little messy, with Sammy Davis Jr. emptying a salt shaker onto the floor and proceeding to do a soft shoe dance atop the pile, with a game Sinatra joining in. Sal recalls his father, Joe, intervening, telling them they couldn't do this, because "I can't afford this kind of entertainment here."

It's moments like these that Sal wishes were captured on film, and another is the time when Sammy and Frank put on the ultimate talent show between the two. After a few drinks, Sammy was feeling bold, started singing "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better," and then signaled for Sinatra to top that. 

The Chairman obliged, singing louder and prouder. The two went back and forth, with more spilt salt and soft show dancing on top of it. Apparently, Sinatra edged out Davis Jr. each and every round. In his final performance salvo, Davis Jr. took out his glass eye and laid it on the table, and said, "Top that Mr. Chairman." To which Sinatra ran the white flag in words, saying "You won. That's it. I can't do that."

Music has played such a large role at Patsy's for the singers who have come to dine there, like Billy Joel, Liza Minnelli, Madonna, Jon Bon Jovi, Michael Bublé, some of whom have occasionally broken out in song. Chef Sal said that there are "a lot of great memories in here, a lot of music in it," adding there's enough stories to create a documentary that he would call "If These Walls Could Sing."

At one point in time, Patsy's second floor neighbors were an early incarnation of Atlantic Records' office, which helped contribute to its musical connection. The company was founded by Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson in 1947, and five years later moved next door to Patsy's at 234 West 56th Street. Their office doubled as a tight recording studio, where Ray Charles recorded hits like "What'd I Say."

Atlantic Records would eventually leave for wider pastures, and sadly there is no marker or plaque left behind to mention its former home's significance. For the back room on the second floor at Patsy's, where The Chairman of The Board wined and dined, that is not the case. In 2019, for Patsy's 75th Anniversary, it all became official, when the Sinatra family gave their blessing to the Scognamillos to call it The Frank Sinatra Room. This has made it even more of a draw than it already was, as fans of old "Ol' Blue Eyes," including Bono, continue to flock to his former haunt as a pilgrimage and order up his favorites like Clams Posillipo or stuffed artichokes.

Another Sinatra crony who was also a fan of Patsy's was legendary comedian actor Jackie Gleason. Gleason was the star of TV's "The Honeymooners," and filled in outsized roles in "The Hustler" and "Smokey and The Bandit," and was widely known for his voracious appetite. He had no issues polishing off two steaks in one sitting, and then having a third for dessert, as well as scarfing down five-plus stuffed lobsters for breakfast, or enjoying a nice pot roast... with a scoop of ice cream on top. When Gleason would dine at Patsy's, his favorite dishes included linguine marinara and lobster fra diavolo.

While Patsy's has a set menu, it's still open to special requests. Chef Sal told me that if someone asks for a pizza, his kitchen will rise to the occasion. And even though Patsy's is a dine-in establishment that doesn't focus on takeout or delivery, they once made an exception for Jackie Gleason. He was staying in town for an extended stay at the nearby Park Sheraton and had a hankering for a whole roast suckling pig. Sal's father, Joe, accepted the challenge, but needed a few days to make it happen, along with heaping bowls of mashed potatoes, sauerkraut, and baked beans.

After Joe secured an 18-20 pound pig from the meat market, and put it all together, with all the trimmings, and of course, apple in the divine swine's mouth. When Joe and some staff members brought it over, he asked Gleason when the guests would arrive to help eat the pig, to which the star replied, "what company?"

Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara were one of the funniest couples of all time, and after making other people laugh on stage and screen, they often celebrated at Patsy's. Sal recalled that after their first appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show" at his nearby theater, "they wanted to celebrate at a white table cloth restaurant," which from then on became, as their son Ben Stiller noted, a ritual "where they held court."

Ben and his sister Amy inherited the love of Patsy's from their parents as almost a birthright. Ben wrote the forward to "Patsy's Italian Family Cookbook," gushing. "In a world where the importance of history and tradition seems to have diminished, I'm delighted that the Patsy's of my youth endures." He added, For years, my parents and the Scognamillos have enjoyed a genuine affection for each other, and many important memories from my childhood are rooted in the time we shared at Patsy's."

One memory that still resonates with Sal, and makes him laugh at the irony, is the time the Stillers came in 1999 for an important dinner. Ben was filming "Meet The Parents." This dinner at Patsy's would be when his parents, Jerry and Anne, met the parents of his then-fiancé, Christine Taylor. In an art imitating life moment, Ben admitted on The View, the experience of meeting his father-in-law for the first time was not all that different from his character meeting Roberto DeNiro's, but he revealed "luckily, he was nicer to me."

One of Chef Sal's favorite patrons was the woman who popularized the song "Mambo Italiano" — "Aunt" Rosemary Clooney. In "Patsy's Cookbook," Clooney paid her own tribute to the institution by saying, "Since 1948, Patsy's is the restaurant I go to the moment I arrive in New York." Early in her career, she didn't have much money, but Patsy always fed her soup and bread on the house. Rosemary was also very close with duet partner Sinatra, and every time she came in to eat later in her career, she would joke with Joe that she wanted to buy the first table downstairs, as she relayed to him again and again, "That's the table where Frank Sinatra tried to make me."

Rosemary made dinners at Patsy's a family affair, including her children and grandchildren. Other Clooney patrons include Rosemary's brother Nick, and his son George. George has been a longtime fan and also contributed a quote, for the second Patsy's cookbook, "Since I have a picture of my mom eating at Patsy's Italian Restaurant when she was pregnant with me, I can honestly say that I've been going to Patsy's Italian Restaurant since before I was born. It's been a great part of my life ever since."

One time, Jennifer Lopez was dining and was introduced to Rosemary Clooney by Sal. Lopez admitted she didn't know who she was, to which Sal gobsmackingly told her, "You just made a movie with her nephew George!" (via The New York Times).

Mario Puzo's 1969 novel "The Godfather" has sold over 21 million copies, and the film series that began three years later, is considered one of the greatest in cinematic history. Patsy's has played its own pivotal role in both the book and film. Puzo was a customer of Patsy's and admitted to Sal's father and grandfather that the role Don Corleone was an amalgamation of seven different people he met at the restaurant, including crime boss Frank Costello. The restaurant not only got name checked in the novel (at the wrong street address), as Luca Brasi's favorite restaurant, but it actually served as his final meal before he departed earth to sleep with the fishes.

If there's one day we all wish we could have been at Patsy's above all else it would have to be March 17, 1971. That's when Francis Ford Coppola summoned his principal actors for a family-style dinner for them to meet their titular patriarch Marlon Brando, as well as get to know each other. Brando sat at the head of the table, while his movie sons Robert Duvall, James Caan, and Al Pacino (who later declared Patsy's "my favorite Italian restaurant") tried to impress him. 

Coppola later told NPR's Terry Gross, "they just did an improv together as a family. And when that was over, they were a family." Patsy's has hosted an endless array of goodfellas in the decades since, with the cast of "The Sopranos" with fork in hand.

Joe Scognamillo not only doled out delicious dishes, but also thwarted mob hits in the premises, as well as give great career advice. Customer Al Martino was up for the Frank Sinatraesque role of Johnny Fontane in "The Godfather," but was having second thoughts about the slack he'd get for taking it. Sal set Martino straight, asking him if he was currently employed, and when the answer was no, it was a offer he could no longer refuse.

Pablo Picasso was one of the most prolific painters of the 20th century, but like anyone else, enjoyed a good meal amongst friends. According to legend, he, like Vincent Van Gogh before him, sometimes paid for a meal with a quick sketch on a napkin. There are actually several versions of this "Picasso napkin" story, with the more famous one noting that he withheld his signature, telling the manager, "You asked me to buy the bill, not buy the café." 

Patsy's has its own Picasso tale, where one evening, the artist was dining with a fellow friend from Spain. The two had a lot of catching up to do, and so much so they outlasted every other diner that night. Picasso knew he had gone over the time limit, but he told Patsy Scognamillo that he appreciated letting them hang around, and even offered to return with a painting as a sign of gratitude.

Although Patsy appreciated the artist and his art, as well as his patronage, true to his nature, it was an offer he refused, as he stayed open out of love for Picasso himself. Being a good son, Joe Scognamillo didn't intervene, but later asked his father how he could have possibly passed up on a masterpiece from the master artist. Patsy jokingly replied, "He's a really nice guy, but I don't think he's going to go anywhere. One eye goes this way, one eye goes that way." Grandson Sal still likes to imagine what if he took up Picasso on his offer, saying his father could be sitting on a beach somewhere right now.

As the third generation chef and owner of Patsy's, I wondered if Sal had no choice but to follow in his father's footsteps. He actually wasn't pressured to do so, and went to school to became a cameraman. After the jobs dried up, he put on an apron and has since carried on the family's traditions with both care and pride, alongside wife Lisa and eldest son, Joe. 

Sal recalled that his grandparents "always said this was nothing more than an extension of their home, with a bigger dining room and a bigger kitchen, and these people are guests in our home. And that's the way we feel to this day." This care has translated beyond New York City; you can bring a taste of Patsy's into your own home with a jar sauces, or by pouring over the numerous recipes found in two associated cookbooks.

Walk into Patsy's today, whether it's your first time or 50th, and there is still a strong sense of warmth, and homeliness, to complement the delectable dishes being served. One can't help but being awestruck by the pictures that line the restaurant's hall of fame. While some of the large smiling icons who are posing with various Scognamillo chefs have since passed, many familiar faces still come in anytime they're in town. In fact, the day I was there, Huey Lewis had a reservation for dinner. There are new stars being born all the time, and it's comforting to know that Patsy's will always be there to nourish their hearts, souls, and bellies.