The hardest dinner reservation to secure in New York City is at a 10-table joint called Rao’s. Opened in 1896 on the corner of 114th Street and Pleasant Avenue in the East Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, the place is as famous for its southern Italian cuisine (think meatballs in marinara sauce and Lobster Fra Diavolo) as it is for its colorful clientele, which has long included power brokers from the business, entertainment, sports and political worlds as well as wiseguys, which is what New Yorkers call the Italian Mafiosi who have long operated in the Big Apple.
It’s that last element that gave Rao’s much of its cachet over the decades, for even the most cultured customers liked the idea of breaking bread at tables next to folks who broke legs – and worse – for a living.
Legend has it that members of Gambino, Genovese and Lucchese crime families were regulars for decades and that their presence in the restaurant, which is only open weeknights, made the other patrons feel safe about parking their cars in what used to be a pretty sketchy part of town.
And it is said that after dining there with actors Ray Liotta and Lorraine Bracco prior to filming his epic gangster film “Goodfellas,” director Martin Scorsese ended up casting a number of people from the place as extras.
One night in 2003, people got a little more than they bargained for at Rao’s when Louis “Lump Lump” Barone shot and killed one of the diners, Albert Circelli, over the insults he had hurled at a woman who had risen from her seat to sing “Don’t Rain on My Parade.” Circelli died on the restaurant floor, Barone went to prison and the TV drama “Law & Order” created an episode based on the incident called “Everybody Loves Raimondo’s.”
Not surprisingly given its notoriety for great food and even better atmospherics, Rao’s has expanded to other locales, with an outpost at the Loews Miami Beach Hotel in Florida. Now, the restaurant is enjoying its first limited-time residency outside the U.S., at the fabled Rusacks Hotel along the 18th hole of the Old Course at St Andrews.
Call it “Goodfellas” at the Home of Golf.
Rusacks Hotel beside the 18th hole on the Old Course in St Andrews.
David Cannon, Getty Images
Given the great differences in the two locales, it is hard to imagine Rao’s in the ancient ecclesiastic center. But they do have commonalities. Their enormous popularity among the people who visit them, for one. And a tee time on the Old Course can be just as difficult to procure as a table at the original East Harlem eatery.
But as for finding anybody at the bar in the Scotland edition packing heat or pulling a pistol to settle a dispute over a song, I just don’t see that happening.
As one might say in New York, “Fuhgeddaboudit.”
John Steinbreder
Top: Barbara Ivins-georgoudiou, GGP
