Some interviews are conversations. Others are a seat at the family table. Chef Sal Scognamillo, the third-generation executive chef and co-owner of Patsy’s Italian Restaurant, sat down with veteran talk show host Mickey Burns for a taping of the award-winning television series Profiles with Mickey Burns, and the result was nothing short of sensational. When a man who has spent his whole life inside one of New York’s most storied kitchens meets an interviewer who has made a career of letting his guests tell their own stories, the stories come pouring out like Patsy’s famous marinara.
To understand why this sit-down matters, you have to understand Patsy’s. Founded in 1944 by Pasquale “Patsy” Scognamillo, the classic Neapolitan restaurant has stood at 236 West 56th Street in Manhattan for more than eight decades, run by the same family the entire time. In a city where restaurants open and close with the seasons, that alone is remarkable. What makes it legendary is the company it has kept. Patsy’s became a magnet for stars from every corner of the arts, with Rosemary Clooney and Tony Bennett among its early regulars, and Frank Sinatra famously calling it his favorite restaurant. Ol’ Blue Eyes loved the food so much that he had his favorite dishes flown from Patsy’s kitchen to wherever he was performing.
Perhaps the most astonishing fact about Patsy’s is this: in all those years, the restaurant has had only three chefs. First came Patsy himself, then his son Joe, and then Joe’s son Sal, who took command of the kitchen in the mid-1980s and has been the keeper of the flame ever since. Sal grew up inside the restaurant, learning every part of the business from his father and grandfather, and the recipes Patsy carried from Italy have been handed down from one generation to the next. Earlier this year, Joe Scognamillo, who devoted three quarters of a century to the restaurant his father built, was honored in remembrance, making today’s taping a moment that carries the weight of the whole family’s legacy.
Under Sal’s watch, the Patsy’s name has traveled far beyond West 56th Street. Its line of pasta sauces and gourmet Italian specialties is distributed nationwide, and Sal shared the family’s treasured recipes with home cooks everywhere in Patsy’s Italian Family Cookbook, published by St. Martin’s. He has also become a familiar face on television, cooking on programs including The Today Show and Martha Stewart. Yet anyone who has dined at Patsy’s knows that Sal’s real stage is the dining room. Night after night, he steps out of the kitchen in his chef’s whites and visits every table, shaking hands, sharing a laugh and making sure each guest feels at home. He has said that the greatest compliment he can receive is a diner telling him the meal feels like eating at home.
That warmth made him a natural for Profiles. For more than two decades, Mickey Burns has built his show around intimate one-on-one conversations that keep the focus squarely on the guest. Filmed in Times Square in the heart of New York City, Profiles has welcomed an extraordinary roster of singers, actors, musicians, comedians and athletes, including Tony Orlando, Smokey Robinson, Susan Lucci, Robert Wagner, Joan Rivers, Gloria Gaynor, George Foreman, Kenny G and Don McLean. The show’s two-decade history was even celebrated in the coffee table book Inside Celebrity Profiles: A Visual Journey, filled with behind-the-scenes images of its famous guests.
Mickey’s gift has always been making his guests comfortable enough to reveal who they really are, and few guests come with a richer storybook than Sal Scognamillo. Behind him stand three generations of Scognamillo family history, walls lined with signed photographs of actors, politicians and athletes, and countless nights when the biggest names in entertainment came to Patsy’s not to be seen, but to feel like family. It is a New York story in the truest sense: an immigrant’s dream, a son’s devotion, and a grandson’s determination to keep every tradition exactly as it was meant to be.
Today’s Profiles taping brought all of that to the screen. Two New York institutions met in conversation, one built on great food and the other built on great stories, and the chemistry was undeniable. For fans of classic Italian cooking, for lovers of New York history, and for anyone who has ever raised a glass to Sinatra, this episode of Profiles with Mickey Burns is one to watch. And when it airs, do yourself a favor and book a table on West 56th Street. Chances are Sal will stop by to ask how everything is.
The official website for Patsy’s Italian Restaurant may be found at https://www.patsys.com
Photo Credit: Robert Braunfeld
