Frank Sinatra was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, and rose to superstardom from his working-class upbringing across the Hudson River from New York City’s bright lights. Before he hit it big and left for California, the young crooner used to perform in and around his Garden State hometown. During those years, one of his favorite places to dine was an Italian restaurant called Leo’s Grandevous that’s still around today and devoted to its famous one-time regular.
Leo’s Grandevous has been in business for more than 85 years and is the oldest family-run restaurant in Hoboken. It’s co-owned by siblings Grace Sciancalepore and Nick DePalma, the grandchildren of Italian immigrant Leo DeTerlizzi and his wife Tessie, who founded it in 1939. Sciancalepore told The Hoboken Girl that Sinatra and her grandfather were in “the same circles” when they were young, and that the singer would come to the restaurant after gigs. He’d bring his band and crew with him, treating it as his hangout spot until he moved away.
Leo’s pays tribute to Sinatra with his photos on the walls and other memorabilia, as well as a jukebox that only plays his songs. That dedication to him isn’t unusual in Hoboken, even though once the iconic singer left, he mostly didn’t return. After the city honored him with a Sinatra Day in 1947, he didn’t come back until 1984 with then-President Ronald Reagan.
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What Frank Sinatra ate at Leo’s Grandevous and beyond
Mussels cooked in tomato sauce – Didebashvili.GEO/Shutterstock
Leo’s Grandevous serves Italian-American classics like penne a la vodka, eggplant parmigiana, and chicken piccata, along with pizza. Although the menu features a dish named “Sinatra” — sauteed shrimp with artichoke hearts, mushrooms, and fettuccine — it is not clarified if he actually ate it. However, a different source reported that Leo’s mussels with tomato sauce were Sinatra’s “favorite … in all of Hoboken” (per NBC New York). If you’d like to try them yourself, the restaurant offers the mussels with a choice of garlic white wine, marinara, or fra diavolo sauce.
Frank Sinatra’s culinary preferences spanned the country, proving he enjoyed fine dining well beyond New Jersey. When in New York, he would head to Patsy’s restaurant in Manhattan for Italian food, where he always ordered his favorite old-school appetizer: the stuffed artichokes. He was also partial to an iconic Las Vegas steakhouse, the Golden Steer, where he enjoyed the 16-ounce New York strip steak. However, Sinatra did maintain one particular food tie to his past in Hoboken: He would have boxes of brick oven-baked bread shipped to his Palm Springs home every week from Dom’s Bakery Grand in the city, where he used to get bread growing up.
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Read the original article on Food Republic.
Dining and Cooking