I was in Los Angeles earlier this summer and was staying in Hollywood since it seemed to be centrally located for my trips to see my new accounts that I was calling on. I hadn't been in L.A. for a number of years, so just getting reacquainted with the area was a big part of my trip to the city. After a day of calling on and meeting some of my new accounts, coupled with the stress of Los Angeles area traffic, I was pooped by the time I made it back to the Hampton Inn in the heart of Hollywood that evening. The last thing I wanted to do was to get into the car again and go look for a place to eat. Hollywood is sort of trashy and probably not too safe after dark for those on foot, so finding something in the area while the sun was still up was a bit of a priority. I did a quick search for restaurants in the area and there was an Italian restaurant not far from the hotel with a somewhat familiar name - Rao's. I decided to walk over there for dinner that evening.
You've probably seen Rao's soups and pasta sauces on grocery store shelves for a number of years. Many people feel that Rao's is the best jarred marinara sauce available on the market. Earlier this year, food critics from The Washington Post did a taste-test of 12 of the most popular marinara sauces available at supermarkets across America and they found that Rao's pasta sauce was the best of them all winning handily over the 2nd place finisher - and one of our favorite store-bought marinara sauces - Trader Joe's Tomato Basil Marinara. Five years ago, Bon Appetit magazine declared Rao's marinara as the best jarred sauce of all time.
However, fans of the popular tomato sauce were suddenly concerned when it was announced last month that Campbell's - the famous soup company - bought Rao's parent company Sovos Brands of which 70% of their overall sales were from Rao's sauces and soups. The $2.7 billion dollar acquisition immediately caused concerns with fans or Rao's marinara who thought the behemoth soup company would change the recipe for Rao's sauces. Shortly after the announcement to buy Sovos Brands was made, Campbell's put out a statement that said they would absolutely not touch or change any of the Rao's sauces and soups.
But the history of Rao's dates back over 125 years after Charles Rao, an Italian immigrant who moved to New York with his parents in the 1880's, bought a small brewery-owned tavern at the corner of 114th and Pleasant in the Little Italy section of Harlem, once the home to the largest population of Italians in America. Charles ran the tavern from 1896 until his death in 1909 when his brother Joseph took over. When Prohibition came into effect in 1919, Joseph added food and made bootlegged wine in the basement of the small tavern.
With the nation in the grip of the Great Depression and with Prohibition still in effect, Joseph passed away in 1930. His son Louis Rao took over and kept the little tavern going and eventually thriving into the 40's and 50's. When Louis Rao passed away in 1958, his brother Vincent Rao took over and decided to turn the little neighborhood tavern into an Italian restaurant using many of the Rao family recipes that were brought over by his grandparents from their southern Italian village of Polla. The restaurant became known for their wonderful, yet simple, offerings of Italian food and quickly became a favorite with people in the immediate neighborhood.
In the early 70's Vincent's wife Anna decided to spruce up the restaurant making it a more elegant environment for people to dine. When the place got exceptionally busy at one point in 1972, Vincent and Anna asked their nephew Frank Pellegrino to come in and help out at the bar for a couple weeks. Frank had been a singer on a cruise ship and was between gigs at that point. Frank thought it would just be a short while before he'd get back on a cruise ship to sing but he ended up staying and growing with the restaurant. Frank eventually became the face of Rao's as their maitre d' and front of house manager.
Rao's was considered one of the best kept secrets in Manhattan until New York Times food critic Mimi Sheraton gave the restaurant 3 stars (out of 4) in a review in 1977. Suddenly, Rao's became one of the more popular - and toughest - places to get into in Manhattan. Seating just 60 people, Frank Pellegrino had to implement "table rights" on specific nights for the regulars who were also having trouble getting into the restaurant. Some of the those "table rights" were passed down to family members who still have them today.
Pictured right - Frank Pellegrino, Sr.
Frank Pellegrino - "Frankie" to his friends and loyal patrons - was an interesting man who wore many hats including an actor (appearing in movies such as Goodfellas, and on television shows such as Law & Order and The Sopranos), he authored cookbooks, and later became a businessman offering the Rao's line of sauce, as well as producing a CD of songs that were his favorites on the jukebox at Rao's. He was known for breaking out in song while checking in with diners at their tables some evenings at the restaurant. His friends included Martin Scorsese, Frank Sinatra, Woody Allen, James Caan and Frankie Valli. His hard-nosed exterior, but warm and caring interior gave him the nickname of "Frankie No" as he continually had to turn down people trying to get into Rao's in the 70's and 80's. And it didn't matter if it was a celebrity, a politician, a captain of industry or a tourist in from Indiana, if Frank couldn't fit you in that particular evening, you didn't eat at Rao's.
In 1992, Frank Pellegrino decided to start packaging Rao's famous tomato sauces and offering them on store shelves. Pellegrino said that he was tired of having to say "no" and this way people could get a taste of Rao's at their home. To help launch Rao's Specialty Food, Pellgrino brought in a partner - his cousin, Ron Straci - to help oversee the operation. Straci - a lawyer by trade - helped start the business and oversaw its growth adding more varieties of pasta sauces over the years.
Two years later, Vincent and Anna Rao passed away and Frank Pellegrino and Ron Straci inherited the restaurant from their aunt and uncle. But a 2015 lawsuit Frank Pellegrino filed against Straci and Straci's wife, Sharon - the CEO of Rao's Specialty Foods - alleging that the Straci's were turning down offers to buy the retail food operation caused a deep rift within the family. Pellegrino alleged that Sharon Straci was hoping to stay on as CEO of the company, but the overtures from private equity companies to buy the business didn't include her staying on board. The Straci's eventually countersued Pellegrino making things around Rao's and Rao's Specialty Foods one hot mess. The suits were later dropped when Frank Pellegrino died of cancer at the age of 72 in 2017, and Rao's Specialty Foods was purchased by Sovos Brands later that year for just over $450 million dollars.
Back in 1982, Frank Pellegrino, Jr. was a 12-year-old kid who started to help out in the family restaurant. He bussed tables, was a waiter, he learned to cook in the kitchen and started to learn the management of the restaurant. His father kept trying to talk Frank, Jr. out of coming into the family business, hoping that he'd follow his schooling in graphic design. Frank, Jr. did open his own visual arts business, but it did not last. He eventually joined the family business and opened Baldoria in 2000, a larger version of Rao's in New York's theater district. But it was an inquiry from a large Las Vegas casino that changed the lives of everyone involved in Rao's.
Pictured left - Frank, Jr. and Frank Pellegrino, Sr. in 2015. Picture courtesy Vanity Fair.
In 2005, Caesars Palace contacted Frank Pellegrino, Sr. and wanted to know if he would be interested in putting a Las Vegas version of Rao's in their casino. It intrigued the elder Pellegrino who loved Las Vegas and many of his patrons visited the city over the years. A deal was put in place with Frank Pellegrino, Jr., overseeing the operations of the Las Vegas location. Leaving Baldoria (which eventually closed), Frank, Jr. moved to Las Vegas and they opened Rao's at Caesars Palace in 2006.
With the success of the Las Vegas Rao's, the Pellegrino's and Straci had their eye on the Los Angeles area. Many of their Las Vegas patrons were from Los Angeles and some had remarked to Frank, Jr. that it would be great if they could put a Rao's somewhere in the city. In September of 2013, Frank Pellegrino, Jr. opened the Hollywood location of Rao's in an area that features a number of nondescript post-production film and television studios.
Today, the original Rao's in New York is still in business, despite being gutted by an arsonist in 1995 and a dispute between two Mafiosos in 2003 which saw one mobster shoot another to death at the bar. The Las Vegas location closed in 2021 after 15 years of business, but plans are in the works to open a Rao's in Miami Beach in the near future. It's still a family run business with Frank Pellegrino, Jr. overseeing the operations of the restaurants in Hollywood and New York City making it 4 generations of over 125 years of the Rao/Pellegrini families involved in the Rao's restaurants.
The Rao's in Hollywood is located on Seward Street off of Santa Monica Boulevard. (see map) It turned out to be a 10-minute walk along the grimy streets of Hollywood to get to the restaurant from my hotel. The restaurant is located in a building that may - or may not - have been the site of the Hollywood Cantina, a World War II-era restaurant which catered to West Coast servicemen that was founded by actress Bette Davis and Jules Stein, the co-founder of MCA. The facade of the building was painted the same tomato red color as the original Rao's in New York.
I was definitely an early diner, walking in the door around 5:45 that late afternoon. Just inside the front door was a dining room on left side and a small bar area on the right. The small dining room had a number of autographed photos on the wall, as well as Christmas lights and wreaths - in June! Turns out, that's sort of the signature decoration of the Rao's locations, something they started to do in New York years ago and continues to this day in Los Angeles. The bar area had Christmas lights over the bar and a large picture of Frank Pellegrini, Sr. was on the wall next to the bar.
Just past the front dining area was a larger dining area with an open kitchen window on one side and booths for couples on the opposite side. Like the dining area up front, the main dining room featured dark wood walls and floors, subdued lighting and tables covered with linen cloths. More photos of celebrities and athletes hung on the wall in this room.
In the far back was a covered outdoor dining area. A couple people were already eating out there. It was noticeably more bright due to the sunlight coming through the translucent corrugated roof and it was more of a contemporary look to the decor than the dining rooms. This Rao's location is decidedly larger than the New York City location which seats just 60 diners.
When I first came in, the only person in sight in the place was a bartender. She apologized and said that the maitre d' hadn't shown up for the evening and told me that I could sit pretty much anywhere. After walking through the place I went back to the bar and told the bartender that I'd just sit there with her. She said that was fine with her. "I could use some company," she said as she handed me a menu and asked what I wanted to drink. I started out with an IPA from the Elysian Brewing Company out of Seattle. She brought me my beer and said, "My name is Ashley. Take your time looking through the menu."
Having a menu in my hands at Rao's is definitely different from the original place in New York City. They've never had menus at the original Rao's. When the waiter comes around to your table, he'll tell you pretty much the whole menu. I understand they do have menus for people to look at if they need to, but the quaint nature of Rao's is having the waiters recite the menus. They don't do that at the Rao's in L.A.
The items on the menu at Rao's are definitely old school Italian foods. They had their basic San Marzano marinara sauce offered with a choice of different types of pastas. They had a pear and ricotta-filled ravioli, as well as a carbonara sauce with fusilli pasta. Chicken Milanese, a bone-in veal parmesan, and the lemon chicken featuring Vincent Rao's famous lemon sauce were part of a main entree section of the menu.
I decided on something finally and I started out the dinner with a side Caesar's salad. The lettuce was cool and crisp, and the Caesar's dressing was tangy. It was a nice start to the main part of the meal.
Although many things on the menu sounded pretty good, the one that that jumped out at me was the rigatoni bolognese - a hearty meat sauce of San Marzano marinara with ground beef, pork and veal with tubes of rigatoni pasta mixed in. I thought I needed a red sauce even before I walked into Rao's and this was the perfect dinner for me. I got a glass of a house Italian chianti to go with the meal. The bolognese sauce was thick, meaty and very delicious. This was a very good old world Italian meal.
I lingered around after dinner having one more beer before I was going to head back to the hotel. Ashley came over with a dessert menu for me to look over. She tempted me with her description of a cheesecake they had, but I asked her about the tiramisu. "Made fresh in house every day," she told. That was good enough for me. And for some reason I ordered a double espresso - it was only around 6:30 and it was my thinking that the caffeine buzz I would get from the espresso would be wearing off by the time I would be getting ready for bed later in the evening.
The tiramisu was very good. It was a generous portion that was served to me and it was very rich. Between the tiramisu and the espresso, I was pretty amped up by the time I started my walk back to my hotel.
Although I've never eaten at the original Rao's in New York, I would like to imagine that the one in Los Angeles was just as good. The rigatoni bolognese was a top-notch spot hitter for me and the Caesar's salad was one of the better types of that salad I've ever had. Ashley's service was prompt and friendly, and the atmosphere of Rao's felt like I was sitting in New York, Boston or Chicago rather than in the middle of Hollywood. Rao's is off the beaten path in Los Angeles and is definitely a destination for many. But it's worth the effort - whether you're driving or walking.
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