In New York City recently for a trade show, I stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn on West 46th Street. (see map) Attached to the hotel was an upscale Italian restaurant that definitely caught my attention - not only for the name on the restaurant, but for it being an Italian restaurant in New York City. I had been traveling for a good portion of the day and I didn't feel like going far from the hotel for dinner that evening, so I ended up going downstairs and having dinner at Chazz Palminteri Italian Restaurant.
You've probably seen Chazz Palminteri in any one of a number of films or television programs over the past 30 years. His breakout movie role was in his own screenplay adapted from a one-man stage act he wrote and performed - A Bronx Tale. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his co-starring part in Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway. And he also starred in on my all-time favorite movies - The Usual Suspects.
Calogero Lorenzo Palminteri was born and raised in New York City to second generation Sicilian immigrants. At the age of 9, young "Chazz" Palminteri witnessed the murder of a Mafioso in front of his apartment building in the Bronx. Questioned by the police, Palminteri maintained that he didn't see anything. Much of his upbringing in the Belmont section of the Bronx was the impetus for him writing A Bronx Tale.
As a young man, Palminteri was a singer in a band, a bouncer at night clubs, and dabbled in acting in New York. Once working as a doorman at a night club that was hosting a private party in honor of Hollywood super agent Irving "Swifty" Lazar, Palminteri denied Lazar access to his own party because Palminteri didn't know who Lazar was. Lazar had the club owner fire Palminteri and the 36-year-old actor found himself out of a job and broke.
Pictured right - Chazz Palminteri. Photo courtesy Tampa Bay Times.
Within a year, Palminteri had written A Bronx Tale and moved to Los Angeles to perform the one-man play at a theater there. The play got tremendous reviews and within months Palminteri was getting offers of upwards to $500,000 for the screen rights to the film. After making friends with Robert DeNiro who sought out Palminteri after seeing him perform A Bronx Tale, the two made the movie with Palminteri writing the screen play and DeNiro in his directing debut with both men playing lead roles in the film. At the age of 41, Chazz Palminteri had finally made it as an actor and screenwriter.
But it was a friendship with Frank Sinatra that inspired Palminteri to open his own restaurant. Sinatra used to tell Palminteri about the great New York restaurants of the 50's and 60's. Sinatra once told Palminteri, "You always need a place to go and eat when your friends are in town." Palminteri's vision of a restaurant featured classic Sicilian dishes served in an elegant, yet casual setting where the customers may initially come because of Palminteri's name, but come back again and again because of the food.
It was in 2011 that Palminteri and a couple partners opened Chazz: A Bronx Original in Baltimore's Little Italy neighborhood. The restaurant was in business for 4 years before Palminteri pulled the plug saying that he overestimated the city's love for authentic Sicilian cooking.
It was also in 2015 when a trio of brothers who owned steakhouses in the New York City area approached Palminteri with a chance to be an investor of a restaurant that rivaled some of the New York haunts Sinatra told Palminteri about. And when he was told that the restaurant would have his name on it, Palminteri jumped at the chance. The first Chazz Palminteri Italian Restaurant opened on 2nd Avenue in New York City in 2015 before moving to its present location in the Times Square area three years later.
The three brothers behind Palminteri's restaurant - Russ, Jack and Jeff Sinanaj - were immigrants from Montenegro. Russ was the first to leave the country and immigrate - albeit illegally - to the United States to live with relatives in New York City. Not long after, his younger brother Jack also entered the United States on a stolen passport. Younger brother Jeff took over a year to get from Montenegro to the U.S., also illegally crossing the border in Texas after stops in Germany and Cuba.
Pictured left - (from left) Chazz Palminteri, Russ Sinanaj, Jeff Sinanaj and Jack Sinanja. Photo courtesy Forbes Magazine.
Russ and Jack lived with 8 other relatives in an apartment in New York City where Russ found work as a busboy at Manhattan Grill, an Italian steakhouse. Jack soon went to work there as a dishwasher and a busboy, but was promoted to bartender within 6 months. Jack had previous cooking and restaurant experience back home helping his mom cook family meals and helping out in the family's restaurant in Montenegro.
While at Manhattan Grill, Jack learned the ins-and-outs of what running a kitchen at a steakhouse was all about. And while Russ eventually left the restaurant business to go into commercial real estate, Jack continued his restaurant career by opening a small pizza place in 1993. Two years later, Jack sold the pizza joint and got a job as a waiter at the legendary Peter Luger Steak House in Manhattan.
Jack Sinanaj soon got his younger brother Jeff a job starting out as a busboy before eventually becoming a waiter at Peter Luger. Before and after their shifts, Jack and Jeff picked the brains of the chefs in the kitchen to learn the proper way to cook steaks, how to season them, and the best temperature to serve the steaks. The brothers also learned the ropes when it came to running a steakhouse from the management team. Jack Sinanaj viewed his time at Peter Luger as a masters course in how to run a top-notch steakhouse.
In 2005, Russ, Jack and Jeff Sinanaj pooled their financial resources along with their cousin Ben to open Ben & Jack's Steakhouse on E. 44th St. in a building that Russ Sinanaj found as a commercial real estate broker. From there, the Sinanaj family opened a second Ben & Jack's Steakhouse (now closed) in 2008.
In 2010, the Sinanaj brothers opened their first Empire Steakhouse under the ESH Restaurant Group umbrella. A second Empire Steakhouse opened in 2012 and the brothers opened a third one in Arizona (now closed) in 2014. Today, ESH Restaurant Group owns two steakhouses in New York, as well as an Empire Steakhouse in Tokyo. In addition to the Chazz Palminteri Italian Restaurant in Manhattan, the group opened a second Chazz Palminteri Italian Restaurant in 2021 near both Palminteri's and Jack Sinanaj's homes in suburban White Plains, NY. And in 2022, ESH Restaurant Group opened the Empire Burger House on E. 50th Street in Manhattan.
(As an aside - all three Sinanaj brothers are legal U.S. citizens gaining their citizenship after initially being granted the ability to stay in the country after declaring for political asylum due to the hostilities in the civil war that was going on in their home region.)
The small lobby area at the Hilton Garden Inn was downright plain and simple compared to walking into Chazz Palminteri Italian Restaurant. The main dining room was in the back of the small restaurant. The tables were all covered with linen tablecloths with paintings of the New York skyline and scenes from Sicily hanging on the wall.
On the walls of the bar area were publicity pictures and stills from some of the movies and television shows Palminteri has been in. There was a small dining area in the front bar area along with outside seating in front of the restaurant. It was definitely too cool to be seated outside that evening.
I ended up taking a seat at the bar. The chairs were low-backed and I have to say they weren't all that comfortable. There were two female bartenders working that night and the one that greeted me was Nora. Nora had a heavy Eastern European accent and I had a bit of trouble making out what she was saying at times. I heard Nora talking to a lady just down the bar later in the evening and Nora told her that she was originally from Albania, right next to Montenegro. Nora told the lady that a large number of people from Albania had immigrated to the New York City/New Jersey area and a lot of them worked in the hospitality industry.
Nora asked me what I wanted to drink and I saw that they had Stella Artois on tap. I took one of those for the time being, but I switched up to a Ruffino Modus Primo super Tuscan red for dinner. She gave me a menu to look over while I heard some interesting music playing in the background of the restaurant. They were playing soft music covers of 70's rock songs such as "Right Down the Line" (Gerry Rafferty) by Scuba and Dinah York; "Behind Blue Eyes" (The Who) by Amazonics, and "Love Hurts" (Nazareth) by Sarah Menescal. I sort of got a kick out the soft-rock versions that were playing of those rock classics.
I started off getting a Caesar salad - hearts of romaine lettuce tossed with a house-made Caesar dressing topped with croutons and shaved parmesan cheese. It was a pretty good salad, but it was expensive - $17.95. Then again, I was in New York City where prices are usually outrageous anywhere you go. It came with a small basket of crusty Italian bread served with an olive oil/garlic spread, Italian olives and chunks of parmesan cheese. The olive oil/garlic spread with the bread was outstanding.
There were a lot of good things on the menu to choose from. And I'm not saying that the menu was expansive - it just had a lot of Italian specialties that I was interested in.
They had a lot of pasta dishes, main entrees included seafood dishes and steaks, they had Italian specialties such as a chicken breast rolled and stuffed with eggplant, prosciutto and provolone cheese, a chicken parm entree, and veal marsala. Some of the pasta entrees included a spinach fettuccine alfredo, bucatini carbonara, lobster ravioli in a brandy cream sauce, and linguine with clams. There was a lot of great choices. I could have gone in any different direction and been happy with what I got.
I ended up getting the pappardelle pasta with a hearty bolognese sauce. It was simply sensational. The hearty meat sauce was tangy with a bit of spiciness. The large pappardelle pasta noodles were fresh and I could easily taste their flavor through the sauce. This was truly a great Italian dinner.
I wasn't certain that I wanted any dessert - they had cheesecake, cannoli, creme brûlée, panna cotta, and a chocolate mousse among many things on their dessert menu. But Nora told me that all their desserts were made in-house and with that I couldn't pass up getting some of their tiramisu. It was served on a plate with criss-crossed chocolate syrup and cocoa powder with a dollop of whipped cream on the side. Just like the meal, the tiramisu was fantastic. It was so good that a couple nights later I stopped by the bar for a nightcap and I couldn't help but order up another slice of tiramisu to enjoy before retiring for the night.
Chazz Palminteri Italian Restaurant wasn't cheap - it was $150 bucks with tax and tip. But it was truly an outstanding meal. Although I had the pappardelle pasta with the bolognese sauce, it appeared that anything I would have chosen from the menu would have been great. The Caesar salad for starters was good, and the tiramisu for dessert was a great ending to the meal. Nora and the other bartender were both very helpful and accommodating throughout my visit. I learned that you don't go to Chazz Palminteri Italian Restaurant because it's co-owned by a celebrity, you go there because the food is outstanding. And that's all Chazz Palminteri was looking for in having his own restaurant in New York City.
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