Vito Racanelli Jr. isn’t your average chef. He’s full of exuberant, infectious energy that permeates all of his work at Onesto Pizza & Trattoria, his new Italian restaurant in the Southampton neighborhood. Sit with him awhile and he’ll talk not only about food, wine and Italy, but his love for Miles Davis and obsession with Star Wars. He’s the kind of guy you just want to hang around. “I love to talk to people,” Racanelli said. “I scared somebody yesterday: I’m making all these bacon pizzas; everybody’s ordering bacon. So I’m thinking about that commercial where they go, ‘Bacon!’ So these people come walking in and I looked at ’em and I scream, ‘Bacon!’ The guy says, ‘Well, I wasn’t awake five minutes ago, but now I’m awake.’”
When did you start cooking? Probably 12, 13 years old, with my mother, cooking in her kitchen. Maybe before that. Being around my mom and watching her work is probably where all my recipes and my cooking came from. My mother, my father, my strong Italian heritage.
Now, the fettuccini Alfredo – is that one of your mom’s recipes? No, that’s just a traditional recipe. That dish, through American history, has been bastardized more than anything else in the world. Something like the Olive Garden just killed that poor thing.
It’s a thick, goopy sauce … It turned from just reducing cream with good cheese, a little nutmeg, some salt and pepper into taking milk and making béchamel and finding 9,000 different ways to cut corners on it and ruin it. Absolutely ruin it.
Your sauce is rich, but it isn’t thick. Because the cream is just slightly reduced, we put a shot of nutmeg in it, we put lots of Reggiano cheese. And the thickening agent in that is the egg yolk; you break it and you bring it together and that’s how it should be thickened – it gives it that nice creaminess.
And your arancini – it’s different from other restaurant versions. I learned what an arancini was by going to Sicily and the street fairs and whatnot
and eating them. That’s how I learned what most things are – going exploring.
Often they’re golf ball-sized. They’re hard and chewy … First off, arancini, it’s supposed to be the size of an orange. It’s supposed to be that big. That’s the only way I know it. When you look back at history, when Italians started immigrating here, they brought a lot of these dishes with them. But then, as they traveled west and started moving out of the East Coast, it was harder for them to find the ingredients. So things started changing and becoming “Americanized.” So that’s why the arancini changed and that’s why the fettuccini Alfredo changed and lasagna changed. But not so much in my house. My mom always kept true to these things.
You say there’s nothing more honest than food. We can eat to live or live to eat. I live to eat. I prefer sitting down and eating more than I do cooking sometimes. It’s a lost art – the art of conversation and food. It’s very romantic and it’s very beautiful. And it’s just slipping away. And it just drives me crazy to see it go away. So when I say there’s nothing more honest than food, I mean there’s nothing more honest than this.
Why add the to-go case with pasta sauces, meats, desserts? It gives it the neighborhood feel. It allows anybody to come in and get wholesome food – if they want to prepare it at home, they have the option of doing that.
You really are in the middle of a neighborhood. Yeah, this is like the Bronx. Some of the best restaurants are in little neighborhoods, tucked away. We came here to look at the smoker and bought the building.
So it was the smoker that got you here. It’s loaded right now; it’s always loaded with somethin’. I’ll smoke something just for the hell of smokin’ ’em. Right now I’ve got duck breast, duckling, Cornish hens and chicken breast on the smoker. I’m gonna put them in my [takeout] case. Tomorrow I’m going to smoke trout, sturgeon and salmon. I pulled brisket off at 2:15 in the morning.
What were you doing here at 2:15? Smoking brisket and pork shoulder, pork loin. I don’t know. I figure I’d stay out of trouble if I stay here and smoke meat.
Now with the pizzas … We don’t have time for me to start talking about pizzas! I studied tai-chi and I apply all of my tai-chi methods while I’m making pizza. The way I hold my hands and use the movements to produce it …
Are you serious or are you joking? I’m not joking with you at all. I stayed here last night and one of the waitresses that works here, her name’s Amy, she was like, “I want you to teach me to do this.” ’Cause I don’t like any mats where I work, I put flour on the floor so I can slide back and forth. I like to [use the tai-chi moves] because you’re never using your fingertips.
So that’s the way you stretch the dough. Some of the first dances in the form … I can apply to making a pizza. The way I stand, I keep my chi moving.
When did you start doing this? Probably a few weeks ago. Sometimes I’ll go outside and I’ll meditate and do some stances out by the smoker ’cause I like the smell of the wood. I’ll do that if I’m working a lot just to keep my mind flowing. Keepin’ my Jedi way here. We’re supposed to talk about Star Wars too – we’ll talk about food, we’ll talk about the restaurant and then we’ll get to what’s really important. And those are the principles of the Jedi way.
This article appears in Jun 1-30, 2008.