Actor Steve Schirripa on “Talking Sopranos” and the Perfect Meatball

The Sopranos premiered on cable television in 1999 and ended in 2007 after a six-year run, yet it continues to be one of the most revered television shows ever made. It's also the most well-known series about Italian Americans, a crime melodrama that wowed audiences with the first nuanced portrayal of a fictional mafioso from North Jersey, Tony Soprano (played by the late James Gandolfini). The HBO series earned two Peabodys, 21 Emmys, five Golden Globes, and “Best Written TV Show” by the Writers Guild of America. It launched the golden age of television.

Last year, Sopranos actor Steve Schirripa, who played Bobby Baccalieri, Tony Soprano’s brother-in-law, and Michael Imperioli, who played Christopher Moltesanti, Tony’s protégé and cousin, launched “Talking Sopranos" in April 2020. The new podcast became an instant hit, pulling in 200,000 listeners per episode. This fall, Schirripa and Imperioli will publish an oral history of The Sopranos, right on time for the release of the highly anticipated feature film The Many Saints of Newark, a Sopranos prequel with James Gandolfini’s son, Michael Gandolfini, starring as a young Tony Soprano.

At first, Schirripa says, he wasn’t sure about launching the podcast in the midst of a lockdown. The studio canceled the recording in New York City, and he thought, “Who gives a shit about a TV show? The world’s coming to an end here!” But Imperioli insisted on moving forward, and the duo turned Saturday afternoons into filmed podcast sessions. It didn’t matter that Schirripa hadn’t watched The Sopranos in nearly 20 years. He soon realized that people around the world had been waiting.

Over 40 episodes later, Schirripa and Imperioli’s in-depth conversations with cast members, writers, and producers have exposed new secrets about what went on behind the scenes and how the actors’ lives were changed as a result of the series. But it's the detailed tangents on Italian food—like why writer David Chase scripted the Sopranos children drinking milk with spaghetti, an unthinkable pairing for their Italian ancestors—that serve as cultural revelations.

In an exclusive interview with La Cucina Italiana, Schirripa, a self-proclaimed “goomba” whose character was often seen devouring food, recalls several legendary Italian restaurants that catered for the crew. For him, they are like monuments, a place you go to remember life's most important moments.

“The thing I like about Bamonte’s [in Williamsburg, Brooklyn,] is that people have been there for their baptism and for their death. People have been going there for that long,” he says. “I really love family restaurants like that. I shot in Rao’s [in East Harlem] years ago, and the owner Frank Pellegrino [also from The Sopranos], a friend of mine, let us in the kitchen and showed us how to make meatballs. It was a small crew, maybe about 10 of us. He cooked for us and served us, and we ate there in the middle of the afternoon.”

Before Schirripa became a well-known actor and author, he grew up in the Italian-American neighborhood of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, where pork shops and feast days of sausage and peppers were part of everyday life.

Thanks to his grandmother—who was an “incredible cook in a neighborhood of incredible cooks," Shirripa says—he experienced the beauty of waking up to a fried meatball early in life. He eventually wrote a cookbook, and he still swoons for a good tomato sauce. It always gets him thinking, “Jeez! Remember that time my mother made…”

Here, Schirripa shares stories of an era when the world seemed to stop every Sunday afternoon as the family descended on his Calabrian grandmother’s home. Unexpectedly, the past months have reminded him of what he missed the most from those bygone days: eating food as a family.

“That's the one thing about the pandemic—the one thing, if there's a silver lining in this horrible cloud—is that everyone got to spend some time with their family. My daughter was with us and we cooked most nights, or we ordered in, and we got to spend more time with the family,” he says.

Here’s Schirripa’s take on growing up as an Italian American in Brooklyn, feasting in Manhattan after his colleagues’ characters met an unfortunate end, and of course, his lifelong obsession with the perfect meatball.

What was it like going out in New York City with actor James Gandolfini [Tony Soprano]?

We would just order separately, some appetizers for the table and a little of that and a little of this. We used to go out quite a bit, myself, Michael Imperioli and Jim [James Gandolfini], and sometimes Steve Van Zandt. One of our favorite restaurants is Peasant on Elizabeth Street. It was the most spectacular restaurant. We absolutely loved it. Also, there used to be an Italian steakhouse called Macellaria. It was a place where they had an incredible ribeye Tuscan-style with the bone in.

Where else did you enjoy going?

Il Cortile on Mulberry Street. That’s where we took people when they were getting “killed off.” I used to live upstairs for two years when I was working on the show. That was kinda our home base. We had many, many big dinners there. You know, somebody is killed off and a bunch of people go out to dinner. One night, the entire cast and about 50 people went out, and we all ate and drank. We had Dominic Chianese’s [Uncle Junior] bachelor party, and we had my first book party. That was really The Sopranos’ home.

I know you enjoy what some people call “red sauce” Italian or Southern Italian-influenced dishes. What in particular do you love about meatballs?

I’m a big eggplant parm guy, so I’m a big meatball guy. A lot of restaurants will make them on Monday and then you go in on Thursday, and they thaw them out. There is a lot of that. So the place that makes a good meatball and the best meatball I ever had, or one of them, is a place in Westerly, Rhode Island, called Longo Ristorante & Pizzeria. Meatballs and martinis.

And what do you look for in the perfect meatball?

I know a lot of people that go for the veal, pork, and beef. I kinda like that combination. It has to be soft. If it's a hard meatball, we’re out! That’s it! We’re done! A lot of people put bread in the meatball. It’s a fine line. Some people put milk in their meatballs to soften them. We had a friend who made fried meatballs. I remember waking up to my mother’s great fried meatballs and that’s incredible. I love fried meatballs with raisins and pinoli.

How did your family in Brooklyn, with its Calabrian roots, pronounce the names of your favorite Italian foods?

Mozzarel’, calamar’, prosciutt’, rigott’. My grandmother used to cut off the “a” on everything. Refridge, frigidaire. I live in California when I’m not living in New York City, and I’ve found that you have to say things completely in certain parts of the country. You have to say, “We’ll have the fried calamari.” I lived in Las Vegas for 25 years. It’s the same thing there. You have to say the full words. You assume they know it, but they don’t.

Who cooked in your family?

My mother cooked. She was raised in an Italian neighborhood in Bensonhurst, and she was a good Italian cook. Even though she wasn't raised Italian, she cooked Italian, cursed Italian, and she was a really good cook. She did almost all of the cooking. My father, a little bit. He was also good.

What other types of Italian food do you enjoy eating?

I like cacio e pepe pasta. I like red sauce, but I really enjoy garlic and oil and sauces like that.

Are there any traditional Italian dishes that you always make?

There's one dish that I make every Christmas Eve and only on Christmas Eve: shrimp oreganata. My father made it, and I’ve been making it for as long as I can remember since [my wife and I] have been married and my kids look forward to it, and on and on and on.

But you know, the one thing about Italians and food is, I think, Italians can eat at any time. Things are good, they eat. Things are bad, they eat. They eat at any celebration: a wedding, an engagement, a birthday party. You know we’re gonna eat, right? And you go, “what’s the big thing?” After the funeral, between the funeral, Italian funerals or Catholic funerals or what's it? 2-5 pm and 7-9 pm, and in between, they go eat. That’s why near every funeral parlor, there's bars and restaurants. And the big thing is, of course, they’re mourning the dead person. And they also eat when they are mourning, or for a break-up. Italians go to restaurants to break up.

Have you ever had a break-up in a restaurant?

I have. Once, years ago, we were having lunch and I was eating a meatball sandwich and she wanted to break up. I said, “Let me finish my sandwich first, and then we can finish talking.”