The Pasta Dish Tom Colicchio Would Never Order At A Restaurant

We all know that even celebrity chefs eat out, but we bet you didn't know they specifically avoided ordering certain dishes. For example, chef Tom Colicchio, who co-founded New York's Gramercy Tavern, would never order this one dish at any restaurant. He told Yahoo! Life, "Sunday gravy is something I'd never order out... When I was growing up it was meatballs and macaroni ... Every Sunday that's what we had for dinner."

Colicchio explained that it wasn't because restaurants couldn't get Sunday gravy down correctly. If you didn't know, Sunday gravy is an Italian-American dish with Neopolitan origins. Essentially, Sunday gravy is a Neapolitan ragù. It is a big and hearty meal, with a meaty sauce (or the Sunday gravy) full of different meats like sausages, ribs, and meatballs over pasta.

Sunday gravy is very satisfying and usually made once a week, such as on Sundays, with the whole family and potentially neighbors, gathered around the table. For Colicchio, regarding Sunday gravy, it's a matter of childhood nostalgia and memories of his family. A restaurant could make the best Sunday gravy ever, with the most prime cuts of beef and meat, but it would still not compare to the one his mother would make in the past. In fact, as he had told Yahoo Life, the sauce his mother made was simple. And sometimes, simple is best, especially for a growing child.

A quick note — Sunday sauce is another name for Sunday gravy. This makes sense since this dish is all about the flavor-packed sauce.

If all this talk about the dish Sunday gravy has gotten you curious and craving some this week, be sure to try the special Italian Sunday sauce recipe by Tasting Table's recipe developer Michelle Bottalico. While Bottalico's Sunday sauce recipe is not meaty, but more herb and vegetable-based, it is easy to customize the dish. Meat lovers, feel free to cook some minced meat or meatballs to stir into the delicious sauce. 

Once you have the sauce down, you'll need to serve it generously over pasta. You can take a page from Colicchio's book and serve the sauce over macaroni. While macaroni may not be our pick as the best type of pasta to serve with a meat sauce like Sunday gravy — rigatoni and tagliatelle are — it will still taste great, especially for children and for adults who want to nourish their inner child.