A coal-laminated pizzeria in the shadow of Brooklyn Bridge, attracts new fans of New York City's oldest pizza style and helps launch a nationwide move for artisan pizza, Queen's Patsy Grimaldi, a restaurant that died in. He was 93 years old.
His nephew Frederick Grimaldi confirmed his death at the New York Presbyterian Queens Hospital.
Grimaldi began selling pie in 1990 under the name Patsy's. At the time, legal skirmishes regularly disrupt the city's pizza landscape, and it wasn't long before threatening letters from another Patsy's lawyer. Years later, he reopened the restaurant under a name that honored his mother. Today, the sign reads Juliana's pizza.
By all names, Mr. Grimaldi's pizzeria attracted a long line of diners outside Old Fulton Street. He was hungry for the delicate, delicate crust, which was baked at home, a white pool of fresh mozzarella cheese, and a soft, delicate crust that was baked in minutes. Anthracite charcoal.
Like the chef he trained, Grimaldi agreed with techniques he learned in his early teens, working at Patsy Pizzeria in East Harlem, owned by his uncle Pasquale Ranchieli. Ranchieli is one of the small fraternities of immigrants from Naples, founder of Pizzeria Napolitana in Totono, Brooklyn, and Johns on Bleaker Street in Greenwich Village, which introduced New Yorkers to pizza in the early 20th century. Includes:
Grimaldi returned to their origins when he opened his place in a newly built coal oven after a long career as a waiter. At the same time, the moment he brought to his craft – for example, he picked up fennel sausages at a pork shop in Queens every morning, and other pizzerias bought them from large distributors, but focused on ingredients. I was expecting a group of pizza origins. Follow him.
Anthony Mangiri, the city's “first artisan style pizza,” said in an interview that he is the owner of Una Pizza Napoletana in Lower Manhattan.
“He was the first place where he really had an old-fashioned connection, but he was thinking a little further.
Patsy Frederick Grimaldi was born in the Bronx on August 3, 1931 to a migrant from southern Italy, Federico and Maria Juliana (Lancieri) Grimaldi. His father, music teacher and barber passed away when Patsy was 12 years old. To support her mother and five siblings, Patsy worked first as a bus boy, then as an apprentice in the coal oven, and ultimately as a waiter at her uncle's pizzeria. Aside from his short leave of absence in the Army in the early 1950s, he stayed until 1974.
Patsy's pizzeria kept their late hours at the time, and Grimaldi was accused of celebrities, gangsters, off-duty chefs and other nights including Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, Rodney Dangerfield, Joe DiMagio and Frank Sinatra. He was skilled at caring for other creatures.
The bond he formed with Sinatra continued for decades. Grimaldi personally delivered the delivery from Patsy (two big sausage pie) when Sinatra stayed in a suite in Waldorf Astoria. In 1953 they ran to each other in Hawaii. There, Sinatra was filming “from here forever.”
“What are you doing here?” the singer asked the waiter. Mr. Grimaldi was dispatched by the military to play trumpets in the army band.
Mr Grimaldi met his wife Carol at a New York nightclub and took her to Patsy's pizzeria on his first date. They got married in 1971.
After a while, Grimaldi left Patsy and waited for a table at a series of restaurants, including Copacabana and jazz club Jimmy Ryan. He was 57 years old and worked at a Waterfront Café in Brooklyn. At an abandoned hardware store on Old Fulton Street, there was a “rental” sign in the window and a paid phone bolted to a nearby wall. He picked up the phone and dialed the number. Shortly afterwards, he was showing off the subtle elemental delights of coal-fired pizza to those who had never tried it.
Investment banker Matthew Grogan ate Patsy just a few weeks after it opened. Up until that moment he thought he knew what a good pizza was.
“I said, 'I've been a scam all these past few years, and this is the best food I've ever had,' he recalled in an interview. (He later founded Juliana along with Grimaldis.)
Others seem to agree, including critics, restaurant guide writers, and clients. Some of them were well known, like Warren Beatty, who brought his wife, Annette Beening. (“So you're in the film too?” Mrs. Grimaldi asked her.) The others were vague until they determined that Mr. Grimaldi looked like a famous person. “Mel Gibson is here tonight!” he would call. Or: “Look, that's Marisa Tomei!” When the actual Marisa Tomei entered, he was more reserved.
According to unpublished history written by Mrs. Grimaldi, when mob boss John Gotti was tried in federal court in downtown Brooklyn in 1992, his lawyer became a frequent takeout client. I did.
“We wrapped each slice in foil and they put it in an attachment case so John could get our pizza for lunch,” she wrote.
In 1998, Grimaldis sold the pizzeria to Frank Shiori, and decided to try his hand when he retired. It didn't last long. He also had no connection with Mr. Shiori, who opened up all the Grimaldi series that he believed could not maintain the standards he had set in Brooklyn. When they found out their old restaurant was being kicked out, they snapped the lease.
Ciolli, who moved to the building next to Grimaldi, pleaded to stop them from reopening. The Grimaldi claimed in their affidavits, “I was trying to steal the very business I had previously sold to me.”
We finally reached a ceasefire. These days, the lines outside of Juliana are often indistinguishable from the lines outside of Grimaldi.
Mr. Grimaldi, who lived in Queens, was survived by his sister Esther Massa. daughter, Victoria Strickland; And grandchildren. His wife passed away in 2014. My son Pat passed away in 2018.
In the alcove of Juliana is a small Sinatra shrine. The pioneering jukebox Patsy (aka Patsy Grimaldi's Grimaldi) stocked Sinatra Records, with several scattered Dean Martins. Grimaldi maintained a strict, non-reliable policy with one exception. Mr. Sinatra.
