FRANK CASTRONOVO: But we're getting our After A Hard Day's
Work drink.
I think we should put some of these in our pockets, because
when we leave here, we won't be able to get that anymore.
FRANK FALCINELLI: I've got a denim jacket that has pockets
on the inside.
FRANK CASTRONOVO: I brought my jacket with all the pockets so
I can put shit in there.
This is Frank Castronovo of Frankies Spuntino.
Do you want to do that?
FRANK FALCINELLI: Frank Falcinelli.
Frank Castronovo.
All right.
Here we go.
Our idea, our concept was just to attract the least amount of
attention as possible.
That was pretty much it.
FRANK CASTRONOVO: We kind of fly under the radar.
FRANK FALCINELLI: Yeah, be out in Brooklyn and just fix up a
place nice and get back to the stuff that we ate
when we were kids.
In chronological order, our restaurants are Frankies
Spuntino on Court Street, Frankies Spuntino on Clinton
Street, Cafe Pedlar, Prime Meats right next to us on 465
Court Street.
FRANK CASTRONOVO: Last but not least.
FRANK FALCINELLI: Last but not least.
We're in Carroll Gardens heading over to Roberta's.
FRANK CASTRONOVO: When you want to feel relaxed, you want
to just kick back your feet, take off your shoes.
FRANK FALCINELLI: Roll something delicious.
FRANK CASTRONOVO: We're going to spread
the joy and the cheer.
They've got sick pizza here, man.
FRANK FALCINELLI: Cheer's man.
FRANK CASTRONOVO: Prost.
-The Frankie story?
Well, these two guys grew up together in Queens.
FRANK CASTRONOVO: Probably like 13.
FRANK FALCINELLI: Yeah, 12, 13 years old.
FRANK CASTRONOVO: Frank went to culinary school like right
after high school.
And I ran into him.
And I was like, where are you at, man?
And he was like, I'm working at Maxines.
And I was like, fuck, I've got to get out of Queens, man.
How the fuck am I going to get out of here?
And he's like, oh yeah you travel a lot.
You could be a chef.
You could work in any country in the world.
And I always loved to travel and go places and that was
like my ticket.
Thinking someday, you know I've got to do something.
Why don't I open a restaurant?
I love to eat.
I go to everybody's house to eat, man.
I was invited to everybody's lunch and
everybody's dinner, man.
I thought I was going to be 55 years old and have a little
restaurant with my wife and my kids.
And we were just going to have a little thing.
And Frank said, uh uh.
It's happening now.
We're doing it now.
Whoa.
FRANK FALCINELLI: The one thing that's awesome about
being in the restaurant business and coming to
restaurants, you can order like a salad and then you get
40 entrees.
If you're working like 90 hours and you're incessantly
worrying about your business, the least you can do is go to
another restaurant and get a bunch of free shit.
This is like restaurant merch.
They are like, hey, have another one of my t-shirts.
FRANK FALCINELLI: But we've got to go
outside and smoke, man.
Where's that smoke coming from, man?
Oh, my goodness.
And Roberta's crew has now ingested more THC than they've
ever ingested.
So, we're going to see Mathieu at Motorino now.
MATHIEU PALOMBINO: Welcome to Motorino.
And it's a great honor to have the Frankies here.
FRANK CASTRONOVO: Mathieu from Motorino--
FRANK FALCINELLI: Is a classically trained chef.
FRANK CASTRONOVO: He's like us.
He's more of a classically trained chef.
We talk food.
And he knows more than just making pizza.
And he's also similar to us starting out.
Just kind of doing like very simple things, but doing them
really well.
Just focusing on the quality of the product and not trying
to do everything that he knows.
FRANK FALCINELLI: We share the same hospitality aesthetic
that we have as far as really making people feel
comfortable.
A little bit more than buying them a drink type of thing.
It's just real, you know--
you feel like you want to be part of that.
And they want to be part of your life while you're there
and away from there.
And it's just a bond that carries on.
They call it roasted mortadella,
but it's fried baloney.
It is.
That's fried fucking baloney.
Yep.
He throws the kitchen sink at you.
That's the shit right there.
We're definitely doing a lot of different projects.
But we're trying to keep the pace steady and even.
"The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion and Cooking Manual."
That's going to be out in June.
Somebody's got to be interested in how to make the
damn gnocchi or how to make the cavatelli or how to make
the white onion dressing.
It stays true to the fact that it is a cooking manual.
It's meant to stay on the kitchen counter at all times
so that's your go-to book.
Getting down with some delicious, delicious--
Cheers.
Cheers man.
FRANK CASTRONOVO: We're leaving Williamsburg.
And we're heading back to Carroll Gardens.
FRANK FALCINELLI: We kidnapped Mathieu.
The menu is very solid.
And all the dishes--
when you take a dish off, you get like an uproar and say,
why are you taking that out?
Something basic, like our meatballs.
That's everything everybody wants
to know about, meatballs.
So let's make a meatball.
It can't be that hard.
FRANK CASTRONOVO: We're doing meatballs Frankie style.
FRANK FALCINELLI: Parsley.
OK, two cups of bread.
Plenty.
FRANK CASTRONOVO: We're making meatballs.
That is some nice looking browning Frank Falcinelli.
You have to nice and slowly brown everything with a lot of
love and care.
Tell you, chefs are like, don't cook with olive oil,
don't cook high-- yeah, you don't go over a certain
temperature.
Keep it like at 110, 120 like Frank's doing right now.
All right, Frank.
Let's go grab a bottle of wine.
FRANK FALCINELLI: Um, let me read French braille.
Yes, it's very easy in braille.
Ooh, yeah.
FRANK CASTRONOVO: So, bascailly, this is more like a
hamburger in tomato sauce with garlic and Parmesan cheese.
It's really tasty like that.
So, here we go.
Now, you can see the meat just reached tempreture, so it's
still really tender.
You just put a little sauce around it.
Put sauce on top of it.
Put a little cheese on that.
FRANK FALCINELLI: It looks good, man.
FRANK CASTRONOVO: It's fresh.
It just got cooked.
Holy shit.
You know people here say, he's a fucking cook.
Or that's all he does, but it's a lot more
serious than that.
We're putting food in people's mouths.
And It's not really about how great we can be and how
popular we can be and how much money we can make.
It's really about truly believing that what you're
doing is something good and what you're doing
is the right thing.
Because when you die and you're done, you're not taking
anything with you except what you did with your soul, how
you enriched it.
And that's why I always feel like what I'm doing is good
and right and true.
Truthfully, I'd love to go out being known as like be
Grateful Dead of food.
That would be like my ultimate.
That's what we're trying to do here.
You came just in time for the final doobie, man.