An Italian-American restaurant
in East Harlem, since 1896.
From an immigrant's tavern on Pleasant Avenue to the most legendary Italian restaurant in America — and a sauce, born in 1992, that found its way into kitchens across the country.
Charles Rao, an immigrant from the southern Italian town of Polla, buys a small tavern at the corner of 114th Street and Pleasant Avenue — the heart of East Harlem's Italian neighborhood. After his passing, his sons Vincent and Louis carry the business through the decades that follow, Prohibition included.
Anna Pellegrino Rao brings her family recipes — and her own pots and pans — from the house next door into the restaurant's kitchen, creating the menu still served today. The regulars multiply. A reputation begins to form.
Three years later, The New York Times awards the kitchen three stars — "wonderfully simple, delicious and honest Italian food" — and the legend of the impossible reservation begins.
Frank Pellegrino Sr. — by then the heart and soul of Rao's — was tired of saying no. To friends. To regulars-of-regulars. To people who simply wanted to taste the sauce.
"This way I don't have to say 'no' anymore. Everybody can have it at home." — Frank Pellegrino Sr.
So Frank Sr. did something the family had never done. He took the restaurant's signature marinara, put it in a jar, and founded Rao's Specialty Foods. No sugar. No paste. No fillers. Three decades later, it remains the leading premium pasta sauce in the world — and the rules haven't changed.
Following the passing of Anna and Vincent, Frank Pellegrino Sr. and Ron Straci take leadership of the original restaurant. For more than two decades, they would steward what is, by then, an East Harlem institution — preserving its rooms, its rules, and its ten tables.
Frank Pellegrino Sr. passes away in February. Restauranteur, host, actor in Goodfellas and The Sopranos — and the man who put Rao's in the kitchens of America.
His son, Frank Pellegrino Jr. — who had opened the Las Vegas room a decade earlier — assumes the family table, alongside Ron Straci. They continue by the rules Frank Sr. left behind: the menu does not change, the regulars keep their seats, and the door is opened, every night, by family.
Under Frank Pellegrino Jr. and Ron Straci, the family table has grown without changing. In 2023, Rao's opened at the Loews Miami Beach Hotel, in the historic St. Moritz Tower — Sunday dinner, brought to South Beach. In Scotland, Rao's at Rusacks looks out over the Old Course at St Andrews.
And on the corner of 114th and Pleasant, the original carries on as it always has — ten tables, the menu Anna wrote, the door opened every night by family.
There are menus at Rao's — there just aren't many reasons to use them. The dishes are recited at the table, the way they have been for fifty years: the lemon chicken, the seafood salad, the meatballs. Home style, or not at all.
For nearly a century, the only way to taste Rao's marinara was to be one of the lucky few with a table. In 1992, Frank Pellegrino Sr. changed that. Rao's Homemade was born of one wish: that the recipe his family had been making since the turn of the century should belong to everybody.
It is still made the same way — slow-simmered, in small batches, with pure olive oil, sweet onions, fresh garlic, basil, oregano, black pepper, and hand-picked, naturally-ripened tomatoes from southern Italy. Nothing else.
From the corner of 114th Street to the Atlantic coast and the home of golf in Scotland — same family, same recipes.
Inside Rao's, the most exclusive restaurant in New York.Read the story →
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Rao's crosses the Atlantic — to the home of golf.Read the story →
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Reservations at the original are by invitation. The tables at Rao's were given out long ago — to friends, regulars, and family — and they've stayed there ever since. For inquiries about New York, please write to us. For Miami Beach and St Andrews, reservations are warmly welcomed.
Sign up for occasional notes from Rao's — new openings, special evenings, and the rare table that comes up.
