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Few celebrities have cemented as enduring a legacy as Frank Sinatra. Ol’ Blue Eyes captivated mid-’40s audiences with his swoon-worthy vocals, enchanting tunes, and lady-killer looks. As with many stars, Sinatra’s life in the limelight has been well-documented and is surely reflected upon fondly by his contemporary audiences — and again, as with many stars, many aspects of his life behind the scenes have been left to speculation. Recently, we’ve unearthed some details about the legend, particularly regarding his relationship with our favorite subject: food.
Who better to give us the scoop on Sinatra’s culinary proclivities than a chef who frequently prepared his fare? We caught up with Theo Schoenegger, executive chef at Sinatra (which is housed inside Las Vegas’ Wynn resort), to get an insider’s perspective on the celeb’s dining habits. Ultimately, we were somewhat surprised at what we discovered, and we ended up falling more in love with Sinatra as a result. We won’t spoil anything yet, but we will say this: If you’ve been of the assumption that everyone with household-name status has expensive, elevated tastes, you’re sorely mistaken.
Frank Sinatra had simple tastes
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Theo Schoenegger emphasized one point about Frank Sinatra’s preferences over and over. “He was a simple eater,” the chef said, adding that the singer enjoyed simple dishes like pasta with tomato sauce, spaghetti with clams, and veal Milanese. Another favorite food of Sinatra’s, interestingly enough, was cold cuts. “He always had to have cold cuts to start with,” explained Schoenegger, noting that Prosciutto di Parma was among his favorites. Even Sinatra’s technical rider was ridden with simple fare, like cans of Campbell’s soup.
Schoenegger went on to say that, once Sinatra was familiar with his cuisine, he came to request the same dishes over and over. Some of his go-to meals were Schoenegger’s veal Milanese with an arugula salad, osso buco, and scampi. But there was one dish Sinatra always requested when he dined with Schoenegger; in fact, it was one of the first dishes the chef ever made for him. Recounting the first three-course meal he made for Sinatra, Schoenegger said that for “the second dish, he had the chitarra … with fresh tomato sauce and basil. Every subsequent visit he had to have that spaghetti alla chitarra. That was his go-to thing. I mean, a little taste of that had to be part of the menu.”
Dining with Theo Schoenegger expanded his palate
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Though his tastes were unabashedly simple, Frank Sinatra did find his palate expanding a bit under the care of Theo Schoenegger. It almost seems that the first three-course meal Schoenegger (who was employed at San Domenico at the time) made for him was an epiphanic moment for the star. When asked about Sinatra’s reaction upon finishing that dinner, Schoenegger said, “He was blown away. … San Domenico became a bit of his home away from home when he was in New York.”
Having frequented Patsy’s Italian Restaurant, it’s no surprise that Sinatra was a fan of Italian cuisine, but his tastes really took off when dining with Schoenegger — likely because (surprisingly enough) New York City’s Italian food scene at the time wasn’t as booming as it is today. “[W]e were the pioneers of Italian food,” Schoenegger explained, adding that, “San Domenico was sort of the leader in that.”
Prior to discovering Schoenegger’s cuisine, Sinatra had a proclivity for staple, rustic Italian food. “Patsy’s was his go-to place in the old days before San Domenico was open … basic Italian fare, you know, chicken parm and veal Milano and pasta with red sauce,” the chef noted. “… I’m not sure if he had other culinary aspirations.” Though Sinatra’s tastes certainly never became as expansive as they could have been, his Italian horizons were expanded once he started frequenting San Domenico.
Chef Theo first cooked for Sinatra at a dinner party
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Theo Schoenegger doesn’t recall exactly what he made the first time he cooked for Frank Sinatra, but he remembers the occasion in question very well. Unsurprisingly, a central character in the story of their meeting is another famous singer you’re undoubtedly familiar with: Luciano Pavarotti. It turns out that Schoenegger and Pavarotti have quite an amiable history, and their rapport was such that Schoenegger basically acted as Pavarotti’s private chef in a certain capacity.
Schoenegger recounted his early connection with Pavarotti, which was facilitated under his tenure at San Domenico. “The owner was a good friend with some of the big singers and stars, including Luciano Pavarotti, and Luciano actually was the guy that had an apartment right next to San Domenico,” he said. Pavarotti grew such a fondness for San Domenico that he would frequently host parties for his friends at the eatery; at one such shindig, Sinatra and other big names like Bruce Springsteen were among the guests in attendance. Sinatra grew a fondness for San Domenico after that first interaction. The rest, as they say, is history.
The star didn’t have the patience for elevated cuisine
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Though Theo Schoenegger admitted to being a source of culinary expansion for Frank Sinatra, he was still adamant during our conversation that the star had no desire to feast on anything too fancy (apparently, he wasn’t even a huge fan of garlic). When asked if Sinatra had any particular dislikes, Schoenegger referred to nouvelle cuisine, an at-the-time emerging movement that shifted the way consumers viewed fine dining. But Sinatra would have none of it, Schoenegger said, explaining how “he didn’t have the patience for those kinds of things.”
Sinatra’s tastes were by no means highbrow, but he also doesn’t appear to have been picky about what was set down in front of him. “[W]hatever I made for him, I mean, he so appreciated,” Schoenegger expressed, before adding, “And it did not really inspire.”
So, when tasked with crafting the menu at the Sinatra restaurant upon its conception, Schoenegger paid tribute to ‘Ol Blue Eyes’ simple tastes while simultaneously catering to the modern audience’s elevated palate. “So, if you look at the menu, there is two parts. There’s … the Sinatra dishes, which is the osso buco, which is the veal Milano, which seasonally is the spaghetti clams,” the chef said. “… And the rest is sort of my interpretation of what people like; it’s more seasonal things.”
Frank Sinatra only drank Jack
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This next factoid will come as no surprise to anyone even remotely familiar with Frank Sinatra’s culinary preferences. “Frank and Jack,” as Theo Schoenegger lovingly referred to the duo, made an inseparable pair, to such an extent that Jack Daniel’s has since paid tribute to the singer with the release of its Sinatra Select bottle. Schoenegger noted that the Sinatra restaurant is in possession of an aged bottle of the spirit.
Did Sinatra enjoy the occasional cocktail or alternate spirit? Possibly, but none so much as his Jack Daniel’s. “It is basically Frank and Jack. You would never find Frank Sinatra without a glass of Jack Daniel’s,” Schoenegger said. “… I mean, they were big buddies.” Of course, Schoenegger had to give a not-so-subtle nod to the duo on the menu at Sinatra. Among its dessert selections, you’ll find a Cappello, which is a dark chocolate mousse fedora paired with a Jack Daniel’s panna cotta.
It’s happy coincidence that chef Theo Schoenegger ended up heading Sinatra
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Last but certainly not least, we couldn’t wrap up this piece without discussing the seemingly cosmic alignment of circumstances that landed Theo Schoenegger as the executive chef at Sinatra. No, Schoenegger was not originally hired to head up a tributary eatery to Frank Sinatra — in fact, Steve Wynn initially hired Schoenegger to open a restaurant inside the Wynn resort called Theo’s.
Three weeks after being hired, Wynn called Schoenegger into his office with a proposition to completely flip the concept of the restaurant. “[H]e got a hold of the idea that the Sinatra Foundation wanted to open a restaurant down the block … he could not let that happen,” Schoenegger recounted. Wynn and the Sinatra Foundation subsequently partnered together on the restaurant concept, and there’s no question that Schoenegger’s then-recent hiring at the Wynn seriously paved the way for the collaboration.
The whole ordeal was a happy coincidence that Schoenegger recounted to us fondly, saying, “What’s the likelihood that … I’m the one that actually gets hired for a job that is supposed to be an Italian restaurant or a start-up called Theo’s, that then connects into Sinatra? And that I actually knew Sinatra [and] cooked for Sinatra? … What’s the likelihood of that?”
Dining and Cooking