Tag: Ronnie Grisanti’s Restaurant

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Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Alex Grisanti Now in the Kitchen at Ronnie Grisanti’s Restaurant

Alex Grisanti now in the kitchen at Ronnie Grisanti’s Restaurant



Ronnie Grisanti’s Restaurant at one time was known as Ronnie Grisanti & Son Restaurant.

It’s a “sons” thing again. Alex Grisanti recently joined his brother, Judd Grisanti, in the kitchen at Ronnie Grisanti’s Restaurant in Regalia. Their brother, Dino Grisanti, is one of the owners.

Alex, who will continue to operate his 9-Dough-1 food truck, is glad to be back.

“My dad’s name is on the building,” Alex says. “I want to keep that Grisanti quality going that Memphis is used to, and give our customers what they expect out of us Grisantis.”

Judd, who opened Ronnie Grisanti’s Restaurant, in September, 2018, says, “The restaurant was never mine. The restaurant was never about me. The restaurant was never about Alex. It’s about our heritage. It’s about our family. We’re brothers. And it’s great to be back in the kitchen again, cooking alongside each other like we did for 27 years.”

The Grisanti brothers cooked at the Ronnie Grisanti’s restaurant when it was at 2855 Poplar at Humes. Dino, who also is in the car dealership business, worked in the kitchen at one time. Alex was chef/owner of the old Elfo’s restaurant in Germantown.

Judd and Dino asked him to come back, Alex says. He says he told them, “When I wasn’t on my truck, when my truck’s not working during the holiday season when we’re not so busy, that I would come help him and make all the pastries and stuff like that.”

“That’s what kind of got me back there,” says Alex, who now will be doing all types of chef duties in the kitchen.

And, he says, “When Judd’s not there, at least there’s a Grisanti in the building. Like me and dad, Judd, down on Poplar. Just like the old days.”

His food truck – or bus – business is doing “phenomenal,” he says. People still are going crazy over his crawfish pizza and other pizzas.

“This is coming up on our third year with the food truck. I worked nine shifts in the food truck last week. Our business has tripled. Because we’re feeding hospitals and their nurses and big companies where people have to go to work. Like right now, we’re at Campbell Clinic feeding all the doctors and nurses here.”

And, he says, “We built a new truck this winter and it’s doing great.”

It’s actually a “cargo, transport bus,” he says. “I got a bus five or six months ago and it took me all winter to build it. But it’s out and done.”

Judd and Dino aren’t the only ones happy to have their brother in the kitchen again. “I think my dad and my mom would be happy about us being in the kitchen again,” Judd says. “I know he’s smiling.”

Ronnie Grisanti’s Restaurant is at 6150 Poplar Avenue, No. 122, in Regalia; (901) 850-0191

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Best Bets: Elfo Special at Ronnie Grisanti’s Restaurant

Lately, I’ve been making my own quarantine version of the Elfo Special, a Grisanti family classic, at home.

The Grisanti version is made with domestic Gulf white shrimp, mushrooms, garlic, olive oil, and medium-sized spaghetti al dente. My version is made with canned tuna fish, canned mushrooms, olive oil, and whatever pasta I’ve got in the kitchen.

I expected Judd Grisanti, owner of Ronnie Grisanti’s Restaurant, to blow up when I describe my abomination of the Elfo Special, one of his restaurant’s most popular dishes. Instead, he patiently says, “That’s the thing with cooking. Everybody has their own versions of a lot of things. I’m very thankful you’re at home cooking and you’re trying to be doing it — and that the Grisantis had an influence.”

But the good news is that the real Elfo Special is available for curbside takeout at Ronnie Grisanti’s. It’s one of the restaurant’s dishes that’s available as an individual entree or part of a large Grisanti lunch or dinner package.

I asked why the Elfo Special is so special. “I think it’s synonymous with the Grisanti’s restaurant,” Judd says. “This time of year being Lent, my grandfather started making it during Lent.”

I remember talking to Judd’s dad, the late Ronnie Grisanti, about the Elfo Special several years ago. Ronnie told me it was created during Lent as an item for Catholics who couldn’t eat meat on Fridays. Ronnie’s dad, the late Elfo Grisanti, created it in the 1940s at his restaurant, Grisanti’s on Main.

The whole menu isn’t available at Ronnie Grisanti’s, but the restaurant does offer the “Bulk Menu,” which feeds four to five or eight to 10 people. The Bulk Menu is available for lunch and dinner, Judd says. “We have the manicotti, lasagna, Elfo Special, chicken marsala on there. Spaghetti and meatballs. We have other things.”

Ronnie’s also offers evening specials. The day I talked to Judd they were doing a “family four pack” that included “four airline cuts of chicken — wings still attached to the breast — stuffed with prosciutto and smoked mozzarella and marinated in balsamic vinegar, and then oven roasted over plain reggiano parmigiano risotto. And sautéed broccolini. And then you also get a Miss Mary or Caesar salad for four.

“The idea is if they’re getting tired of lasagna or manicotti on the dinner for four, they can say, ‘Let’s see what the special is.’ We give a little more variety. That’s why we’re doing that.”

Desserts are extra. The choices are chocolate cheesecake, tiramisu, and cannolis. All of which are great alternatives to my at-home desserts, which include five-day-old chocolate cake and leftover Valentine’s Day candy.

I asked Judd what his schedule is like these days with curbside service instead of table service. “Just a little bit more hectic. I mean, it’s not bad since we got the routine down. We’ve been really good at it. But every name has a number that goes with it. Just like a table has a number that goes with it. So nothing gets misplaced. Everybody had to come up with their own system and what works for them.

“I think at first we were going with the regular menu. Then we realized people want to feed the family and we’ve got to come up with something else, like the Bulk Menu. For example when everything was normal — back in the normal days — people would order takeout: one Elfo, one filet, one veal marsala, one this or that. Not make it two of this, three of that. They’re trying to simplify their order. Make it much easier to feed the family that way.”

What will remain from this experience when times return to normal at Ronnie Grisanti’s? “I think what we’ll take away from this is we will no longer discourage takeout. Before, when we really got busy in the night, we more or less discouraged takeout. But I think we’re well trained in it now.”

And not only do you get takeout of popular Ronnie Grisanti dishes, you also can buy grocery items. Customers can make their own Grisanti cuisine, including the Elfo Special, at home. “We have people calling in. They can buy the spaghetti, the shrimp, garlic, and butter and put it up at home at their leisure.”

The Grisanti grocery list also includes its Pomodoro sauce, meat sauce, the raviolis, iceberg lettuce, mushrooms, and more. “The biggest thing, of course, is our ground beef chuck — it’s a blend that we put together — and Italian sausage. Salmon sells real well. And shrimp sells very well.”

Ronnie Grisanti’s was giving away a special item the day I called. “If you get an order to go, you get a complimentary toilet paper,” Judd says. “Mont Royale toilet paper.”

That’s also one of the items on the restaurant’s grocery list.

Ronnie Grisanti’s Restaurant is at 6150 Poplar, Suite 122, in the Regalia Shopping Center. (901) 850 0191.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Chef Ryan McCarty on moving on, moving back, and Ronnie Grisanti

Ryan McCarty saved the pocket from the first chef’s jacket he wore when he worked at Ronnie Grisanti’s restaurant.

He was very proud of the jacket.

“It’s a badge of honor, I guess,” says McCarty, 31, executive sous chef at Ronnie Grisanti’s Restaurant in Sheffield Antiques Mall in Collierville. “You work very hard for it. The kitchen is not a place for somebody who just wants to give up easy. It’s ‘grind or get out.'”

Why just the pocket? “I’m sure with all the work and everything, the pocket’s probably the cleanest spot.”

McCarty remembers when Grisanti gave him the jacket and said, “Son, get back to work.”

The jacket was “the first one he gave to me, one given from a chef to another chef. Well, I was still a cook then.”

A native of Orange County, California, McCarty, who grew up in a Mexican-American family, began playing ice hockey when he was 5 years old. “I played all the way through high school.”

When he was 9, his family moved to the Memphis area, where McCarty attended Cordova High School.

When he wasn’t on the rink, McCarty loved to be in the kitchen. “Every holiday, I was making tamales, pozole. It was just all the smells in the kitchen and always helping out. Making the masa. Just making taquitos and empanadas. I just wanted to hang out in the kitchen when I was a kid. I didn’t want to leave.”

McCarty also helped his dad on the grill. “I was grilling the steaks because I could do the perfect medium rare.”

He flirted with the idea of going into sports medicine in college, but he decided it was boring. “I always knew I wanted to cook.”

McCarty began working with a catering company. “I would do prep or whatever. And I was like, ‘Oh, wow. I dig this.’ Then I worked in the kitchen, and I just liked it. I get my knives. I can wear my chef’s coat. I was like, ‘Yes!'”

He got a job as a cook at Grisanti’s restaurant after his buddy, Travis Tungseth, told him Grisanti was looking for some help.

McCarty, who began making pasta and “infusing the rosemary in the meat sauce,” says Grisanti was very patient. “He just wanted to make sure you did it right, and the way he does it. Very patient and great with that, but super stubborn. You mess it up, then it’s going in the trash.”

About two years later, McCarty took a job at the old Chiwawa in Overton Square. “That’s when Midtown started booming. That’s when they started doing all that renewal stuff. Then the opportunities started coming and knocking, and a bunch of buddies started doing the ‘journey to Mecca.’ That’s what I called it.”

Grisanti wasn’t angry when McCarty told him he was leaving. He wanted his chefs to grow and “go to the next thing,” McCarty says.

After two years at Chiwawa, McCarty moved to Salem, Oregon, where he became a catering chef. He stayed two years in Oregon, where the emphasis was on seafood and baking artisan breads.

He moved to Memphis after his dad died. McCarty’s son, Zayden, 6, also lives in Memphis.

McCarty had some restaurant offers, but he went back to work for Ronnie Grisanti. “I didn’t think twice about it because I missed Ronnie and the family and all that. I just came straight here. I didn’t care about pay. I didn’t care about anything. I just wanted to work in a cool kitchen again.”

And, he says, “I’m a ‘son.'”

The first thing Grisanti said to him was, “Come here, son.”

McCarty answered, “Yes, sir, Cap.”

McCarty creates specials at the restaurant. “I love doing soups. Especially being out there at the Pacific Northwest. Chowder soup and all that.”

Grisanti died June 30th. McCarty and the other chefs from Ronnie Grisanti’s Restaurant sat together at his funeral. The chefs and kitchen staff are family — even if some of them have gone on to other restaurants, McCarty says. “It was like a brotherhood back there. I guess that’s why all the guys who worked there — we’re still friends to this day. I still hang out with these guys.”

Porcini Crusted Scallops from Michael Donahue on Vimeo.

Chef Ryan McCarty on moving on, moving back, and Ronnie Grisanti

Ronnie Grisanti’s Restaurant, 684 W. Poplar, 850-0191