Emilio's Ballato Restaurant: His Signatures Are His Signature

By Mitch Broder

Every restaurant in New York City has an autograph from Ernie Anastos.

Emilio’s Ballato Restaurant has an autograph from everyone else.

Actually, Ernie’s pretty trim for a guy who’s eaten at 25,000 places, but that’s a topic for another post. The point here is that Emilio’s is a place where celebrities can hide from the world — after which they can see to it that the world knows they were there.

It makes sense if you’re a celebrity, and it makes sense if you’re Emilio Vitolo. He’s proud of his clients, so he serves them, then takes their names. On his walls are four giant canvases covered with the signatures of famous people from assorted disciplines and assorted eras.

The canvases are about five feet high and two feet wide. Two are behind glass; two are exposed. The exposed ones are the works in progress. Among the signatures are those of Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, Denzel Washington, Whoopi Goldberg, Brad Pitt, Kiefer Sutherland, Drew Barrymore, and Alex Rodriguez.

“These people, they come here, they eat,” Emilio says. “Nobody bothers them. Nobody cares.” The canvases, he says, are “a memory that when I go, I leave to my kids, to show that I met these beautiful people. They could go anywhere in the world, but they come to me.”

One reason is that he’s not so easy to come to. Emilio’s is a single restaurant that’s in at least six different neighborhoods. New York magazine says it’s in the East Village, Time Out New York has it in both Little Italy and Chinatown, Citysearch calls it NoLita, and Yelp puts it in NoHo, while Emilio himself maintains that he’s in SoHo.

Wherever it is, it’s hidden and homey, with distressed walls and mirrors, and soothing song from the likes of Sinatra and Roselli. While I was there, Emilio insisted I eat. I had Tagliatelle alla Bolognese and warm prosciutto bread. The food was so good that it made me forget my planned lunch of Katz’s hot dogs.

 

Emilio has given the restaurant its current old look, but it really is old; John Ballato opened it in 1956. Emilio is the third owner, and he takes his stewardship seriously. That’s why he didn’t ask me to sign one of the canvases.

I understood. It didn’t hurt my feelings.

 Much.

And anyway, I know that my status will change after my post about Ernie Anastos.

Sign in at Emilio’s Ballato Restaurant, at 55 East Houston Street, between Mulberry and Mott streets, in the neighborhood of your choice in Manhattan.

Gene's Restaurant: One of New York's Best Spots for Civil Service

By Mitch Broder

The main thing I knew about Gene’s was its claim to have opened in 1919, which I understood to limit my chances of having a chat with Gene. So I went to its Web site and saw an old post card that said “Established 1923.” I was impressed by a place that gets older in both directions.

I read some MenuPages comments, and almost all of them praised the food. But some of them knocked the restaurant. Those are what got me to make reservations.

“This place is old-school,” one said. “It’s not a youthful environment,” another said. “The atmosphere is a little depressing, it’s really not a restaurant for young people,” a third said.

I was once youthful. Or at least younger. I didn’t like noisy joints then, either. I now questioned equating a non-trending place with bingo night at the morgue.

So I went to Gene’s, and I found it peaceful and soothing, which to me is almost the opposite of a little depressing. But it is indeed old-school. It has paintings and mirrors and wrought-iron bars, which make it seem enduring, and waiters in waiter jackets, which make them seem like waiters.

My waiter coached me on my decisions, perceptively sensing my decision issues. I had the ravioli, my companion had the pasta special, we shared a profiterole, and we could hear ourselves speak. Everything was delicious. Other people smiled at us. All of this also seemed almost the opposite of a little depressing.

I spoke to Danny Ramirez, who runs Gene’s with his brother, David Ramirez. Gene, as I guessed, is no longer available for interviews. Danny acknowledged that the restaurant appeals to older people, but not exclusively: “Most of the kids want something wild and crazy, but there are some young crowds that like the old-fashioned stuff.”

Good for them. They’ll have all the parmigianas to themselves. And they’ll still live longer due to reduced nerve damage. And maybe one of them will have the ambition I didn’t to determine whether the place was established in 1919 or 1923.

Meanwhile, I was ambitious enough to determine the meaning of “old-school.” Urban Dictionary defines it as follows: “A positive appellation referring to when things weren’t flashy but empty of substance, were done by hard work, didn’t pander to the lowest common denominator, and required real skill.”

I’m just quoting.

Feel youthful at Gene’s Restaurant, at 73 West 11th Street, between Fifth and Sixth avenues, in Manhattan.

Rocco Ristorante: Light Up the Place, They'll Pick Up the Check

By Mitch Broder

Rocco is more than a staurant. But at night it looks like a staurant. Which is why its owner has authorized Vintage New York to relay this exclusive offer:

Go to Rocco. Climb a ladder. Put the re back in restaurant. If the owner is happy with your work, he’ll give you dinner free.

This offer developed while the owner, Antonio DaSilva, was acknowledging the importance to the staurant of his suspended vintage neon sign. “That sign is the alert,” he confided. “People sometimes don’t remember what street we’re on, but they see that sign and they say, ‘Oh, that’s it!’”

Except that now they don’t always see that sign, because the sign took a beating in the endless winter that may now finally have ended though I still wouldn’t bet on it. “Sometimes it’s on,” Tony said. “Sometimes it’s not on.” On my visit, one side was not on. The other side said “staurant.”

Both sides are supposed to say “Rocco Restaurant,” which is what the place has been since 1922, when Tony’s great-uncle Rocco Stanziano first opened it. Rocco ran it till 1966, when his nephew Gianni Respinto took over. Gianni ran it till 1992, when his nephew Antonio took over.

Tony doesn’t know when the sign went up but he thinks it was near the beginning, which was around the time that neon signs came to America. Both sides also used to say “Wines-Liquors,” but Tony’s not asking for the world. He’ll be happy if they just say Rocco Restaurant, even if he now calls it Rocco Ristorante.

Then people will again know where to find their Veal Piccata, their Dentice alla Livornese, and their Gnocchi alla Gorgonzola. And they’ll be able to take pictures of the antique sign that look better than mine, though the sign doesn’t actually need to be fixed for that.

Tony did call a neon repairman but the guy didn’t show. That’s what drove him to make his public offering. “Free dinner if you repair the sign,” he said. Then he thought it over. He knew that free dinner might not cover the repair. “OK,” he decided. “Four free dinners.”

Find your way to Rocco Ristorante, at 181 Thompson Street, between Houston and Bleecker streets, in Manhattan.