Paulie’s owner ready to share saucy secrets
Paul Petronella grew up in a restaurant kitchen. At 40, he’s ready to share his saucy secrets
Paul Petronella, who grew up in his parents’ restaurant kitchen in Montrose, says his new book is a family story first, a cookbook second.
Paul Petronella grew up in the restaurant business — covered, he says, with the smell of garlic, tomato sauce and smoke. No doubt. His name is deeply intertwined with some of the great, dynastic Italian names of the Houston dining scene — Mandola, Carrabba, D’Amico, Laurenzo. Readers can see as much in the family tree printed in his new cookbook, “Paulie’s,” which celebrates the Montrose restaurant his parents named for him 20 years ago.
“Paulie’s,” of course, contains recipes for the Italian-American larder that is the restaurant’s hallmark. But it’s also a story of the making of a chef, and his personal roadmap in opening and managing a family-run business, complete with mournful lows and exhilarating highs. The book is due to arrive next week and will be sold at Paulie’s, 1834 Westheimer, and can be preordered on Amazon.
Petronella, 40, began working on the book, which contains striking photographs by Houstonian Debora Smail, about three years ago. He insists it’s a family story first, a cookbook second.
The story
Petronella’s great-grandparents came to America in the early 1900s,
‘Paulie’s: Classic Italian Cooking in the Heart of Houston’s Montrose District’ By Paul Petronella Greenleaf Book Group Press, $27.95, 208 pages
emigrating from Italy through the Gulf of Mexico — Corleone, Sicily, to Galveston. Petronella’s father, Bernard, teamed up with his cousins, Nash D’Amico and Damian Mandola, to open their own restaurant, D’Amico’s on Westheimer near Kirby, in the late 1970s.
As a child, Petronella spent more time in that restaurant than on the playground, often sleeping in the D’Amico’s office, downing Cherry Cokes and noshing on cocktail vegetables. He called the restaurant work a “rock-star lifestyle” and naturally gravitated to the bustle of the kitchen and the sophisticated ambience of the dining room, where Caesar salads and spaghetti carbonara were fashioned tableside.
In 1998, his parents — father Bernard and stepmother Kathy — opened their own restaurant and named it Paulie’s.
“I was flattered that they thought that much of me, but I was also wary of what this could mean for my future,” Petronella writes. “Was this the seed being planted for me to someday take over the family business?
Petronella was a college student in San Marcos at the time. The restaurant got off to a slow start, and his parents, who wanted to make it on their own, had emptied their bank accounts to run their fledgling business.
But after a positive review in the Houston Chronicle, Paulie’s took hold, becoming known for the made-to-order Italian fare in deliberately generous portions that are still served today. “Severe weather and emergencies aside, we never had a day like those first six months again,” he writes.
Petronella, armed with a business degree, said he had a “quarter-life crisis” when he decided against going back to work at the restaurant, instead opting for the advertising business. He eventually returned when his parents opened a second Paulie’s near Houston’s Medical Center. He wore several hats then, as general manager, operator and line cook. After two years, the Petronellas accepted an offer from another restaurant operator who wanted the Medical Center space. All efforts returned to the original location.
Petronella took over the business in 2009, and his parents retired. Since then he’s worked at improving food and service. In 2013, a space adjacent to the restaurant became available, and Petronella decided to open a wine bar, Camerata, which became an incubator for sommelier talent and a geeky gathering spot for oenophiles.
Though the food Petronella’s greatgrandparents knew in Sicily has morphed into ItalianAmerican fare, it remains grounded in home-cooking virtues — seasonal soups and salads; housemade pastas and sauces; fresh focaccia and pizza; and come-back-formore desserts.
Petronella shares many of his family’s recipes in the cookbook, including marinara (the “mother sauce”), lobster ravioli, veal saltimbocca, pasta puttanesca, fettuccine Alfredo, chicken Parmesan, mushroom risotto, rigatoni Bolognese, stuffed artichokes, eggplant Parmigiana and cacio e pepe. There are recipes, too, for familiar Paulie’s menu items — think pimento cheese, chicken salad, focaccia, chocolate chip cookies and the shrimp BLT sandwich. He chose to include the recipes he did, Petronella explains, because they can easily be recreated at home.
When Petronella took ownership of Paulie’s, he cooked on the line in his kitchen, knowing it was the engine of the restaurant. He shifted into front-of-the-house operations, but it was that knowledge of how his kitchen was run and what it could do that gave him the strength to invest even deeper in Paulie’s.
Working with David Buehrer of Greenway Coffee, he installed a top-shelf coffee program. He also invested in a pasta-extruding machine and began making all his pasta in-house. He also famously collaborated with top chefs — including James Beard Award winners Chris Shepherd and Justin Yu — for pop-up dinners on Sundays when Paulie’s is closed.
Those associations, coupled with Petronella’s work operating Camerata and as a founder of the organization that runs the OKRA Charity Saloon, the downtown bar that donates 100 percent of its profits, have put his little restaurant in Montrose in Houston’s culinary big league.
“I felt like I’d had my head down, working, for years,” he writes, “and once I lifted it up to see, there were smiling faces all around.”
Paulie’s Marinara
Yield: “This is a batch recipe,” Petronella writes, “that should last a few meals.”
3 tablespoons olive oil 4 ounces yellow onion, diced (about ¾ cup) 1 teaspoon black pepper 2 garlic cloves 1 can (24 ounces) peeled tomato strips 1 can (12 ounces) ground tomatoes 1 teaspoon dry oregano 1 teaspoon salt 1 pound roasted tomatoes (recipe follows), puréed
Instructions: Heat 3 tablespoons oil over medium-low in a large saucepan or stockpot. Add onions and pepper. As onions soften, add garlic and cook until onions become clear.
Add the ground and peeled tomatoes. Stir well to combine. Add salt, oregano and roasted tomato purée. Cover and cook over mediumlow heat for about 45 minutes, stirring often to prevent sticking.
Remove from heat to cool and puree marinara thoroughly.
ROASTED TOMATOES 2-3 pounds Roma tomatoes ½ cup olive oil ¼ cup ground black pepper ¼ cup dry basil
Instructions: Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Slice Roma tomatoes in half and remove guts (seeds and pulp) with a spoon. Lay skin down on a lined baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with black pepper and dry basil. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until dryness and shrinkage appear. You may want to excrete some water, but don’t leave the tomatoes completely dried out. Lay out to cool. These can be covered and refrigerated for several days.
Pasta con Sarde
½ pound bucatini pasta or spaghetti 1 whole sardine, 2-3 ounces, filleted Zest of 1 lemon 1 tablespoon parsley, chopped 1 garlic clove, minced Pinch kosher salt 1 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper ¼ cup panko bread crumbs 2 tablespoons unsalted butter 2 tablespoons olive oil Juice of ½ lemon 8-10 halves pickled cherry tomatoes 2 tablespoons ricotta salata, crumbled
Instructions: Bring pot of lightly salted water to boil, drop in pasta and cook until al dente. Save a bit of pasta water for later use.
In a small mixing bowl, combine sardine fillets with lemon zest, parsley, garlic, salt and black pepper.
In a sauté pan, toast the bread crumbs in 1 tablespoon butter over low heat until brown. Transfer bread crumbs to a separate bowl.
Wipe out any bread crumbs left behind and return sauté pan to medium heat. Heat olive oil until hot. Add sardines and cook for about 2-3 minutes.
Add pasta along with a touch of pasta water. Add fresh lemon juice and the other 1 tablespoon butter.
After the sauce thickens, separate pasta into two bowls. Top with ricotta salata, pickled tomatoes and bread crumbs.