Frankies Platelist

July 6, 2010 — -- For Frank Castronovo and Frank Falcinelli, sustainability has a new meaning - their culinary careers have come full circle.

Having grown up together, they returned to their childhood neighborhoods in 2003 to start something that, at the time, was new and fresh. Today, with several restaurants in New York City and another location opening in Portland, Oregon in 2011, a new cookbook, "The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion & Kitchen Manual," an Austrian-inspired cafe and a butcher shop set to open this summer, the Franks are clearly unstoppable.

Castronovo and Falcinelli have taken the old-world culinary values of their Italian heritage and applied them to their cuisine. The result is an updated Italian fare based on the natural, organic ingredients that keep their clientele clamoring for more.

"The ingredients we're using are the best ingredients and the people love it," Falcinelli said. "[We make] ingredient-driven, season-driven dishes. I think that's why people come back to Frankie's three or four times a week," he said.

But the secret to their success, they say, has a lot more to do with community and staying true to their roots.Frank Castronovo and Frank Falcinelli grew up in the same Italian neighborhood in Queens Village, New York.

Their first and second-generation Italian immigrant families made up part of the vast community, an environment where, as Falcinelli puts it, "every day was Sunday." Castronovo agreed, and he described how as a child running in and out of the home, it was common to see "grandma stirring the pot or mom stirring the pot and making a sauce in it," he said.

Falcinelli said that their early tastes developed as a result of their homes and the community they grew up in. "The home food was the home food, and it had the mom and grandma touches," he said. "And then the street was other peoples' grandmothers' food."

"You had the Italian feel," Castronovo agreed. "Whether we ate at home or from the deli, it was all good. And we use those food memories to draw back on," he said. "It educated your palate as a kid."

Although their combined success has grown exponentially since their union in 2003, the Franks took very different paths to where they are today.

Falcinelli began working in a German deli. He said his philosophy was simple. "The first thing you realized working in the business, so to speak, is you get to eat whenever you want and anything you want," he said. "So you picked the places of the stuff you want to eat and you work there."

Falcinelli later went on to attend culinary school at the Culinary Institute of America.