Rao's Classics

October 1, 2016
Rao's Restaurant, in Manhattan's East Harlem, has been notorious for years for the impossibility to secure a dinner table. Fashionable among the celebrity set despite its off-the-beaten-path basement location, Rao's has served its own version of Southern Italian cooking to adulatory audiences. In recent years, its jarred pasta sauces have shown up on grocery shelves nationwide. Now cooks who prefer making their own at home can follow instructions here for an abbondanza of toppings. Rao's hefty baked lasagna has a definite Italian American accent, rich with meat and ricotta and mozzarella cheesesa far cry from the sophisticated Bolognese version. Similarly, Rao's take on Genoese pesto adds olives and anchovies for a heartier, more distinctively Southern Italian dish. On the other hand, manicotti calls for delicate homemade crepes, not the shortcut pasta tubes found elsewhere. Both devotees and us ordinary folk who never get a table at Rao's will savor these recipes.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)