Big portions, small missteps
Pittstown’s Papa Brillo’s resurrects family’s Italian chain, has right feel
Sometimes a name sticks with you for unknown reasons: perhaps that of a lottery winner, or a town where disaster struck. Something rang a bell when I heard Papa Brillo’s Family Ristorante, an Italian newcomer, had opened earlier this year in Sterup Square, home of the Carousel Ballrooms and, at one time, The Epicurean, on Route 7 in Pittstown. It’s a stretch that snakes from Troy to Bennington, Vt., and where you can buy a Harley or a John Deere, and you pass farms until you come to the much-loved Man of Kent pub in Hoosick Falls.
Papa Brillo’s is the resurrection of a New England family business from the 1970s and '80s that had six locations throughout Rhode Island and Massachusetts before being sold and later closed. Jeff Puppolo, owner of the Pittstown location, remembers growing up in Papa Brillo’s kitchen, working
as a teen while his grandparents and parents ran operations, later hiring cooks and passing on family recipes. His greatgrandfather immigrated to the U.S. from Sicily, and Puppolo recalls his grandmother’s Sunday sauce cooking slowly from early morning to midafternoon. Her technique included layering Italian bread on the simmering sauce to soak up the oil before pulling off the slices to fry them.
Puppolo talks of family and the regulars who came in the door, the black-and-white Hollywood head shots on the walls and tables sporting redand-white checkered cloths. And this triggered my connection to the name and stories of a Rhode Island music venue that tragically burned. Many years before the low-ceilinged, one-story building in West Warwick, R.I, became a club, it was an Italian restaurant. A journalist covering the fire described The Station as “part of the neighborhood, right there on the main drag, at the same spot where Papa Brillo’s used to serve big portions of Italian food on the signature red-and-white checkerboard tablecloths.” Even years on, Papa Brillo’s was remembered as part of the neighborhood, big plates and all.
Those big portions are now upstate, complete with the New England twist. After years working in hospice, relocating to the Troy area to care for an
aunt and hunting for three years for the right space, Puppolo found Sterup Square, called his mother in Rhode Island and told her he was starting the family restaurant again.
Tablecloths here are blackand-white checkerboard, but the long bar is wrapped in the same Hollywood photos with a huge mug shot of Frank Sinatra hung on the far wall.
Booths are cozy, diamond-paned windows look out on a large patio undergoing seasonal cleanup, and a piano in one corner holds the promise of future planned piano nights where patrons will sit alongside. A family-friendly menu offers popular Italian-American hits like veal Parmigiana and chicken Milanese; the New England angle is evident in clam rolls, scallops and scrod.
Rough-chopped quahogs jostle potatoes in a clear Rhode Island “chowda” (the spelling a nod to Puppola’s Rhode Island inflection), a local delicacy along the southern coast. Without dairy, the soup is more broth, briny and light, its flavor closer to steamed clams than the creambased New England soup. Baked stuffed quahogs, sold for $3.50 apiece, are filled with the chopped clams and Italian bread stuffing. Rhode Island stuffed quahogs usually have equal weight of celery, onions and garlic, but these are wetly bready and underseasoned, more crumb than 'hog in a bite.
We order meatballs individually, too — these just $2.50 a pop. They’re a blend of beef and pork, rolled into extra-large, rough-edged balls under marinara sweeter than any I’ve had. It’s a family recipe Puppolo credits for its lightness, unlike a richer Sunday sauce. He simmers San Marzano tomatoes for just 15 minutes and adds sugar, sauteed onions and garlic with the tomatoes off the heat.
Our server brings slabs of Italian white bread with wrapped butter pats and answers my request for wine with, “White or red?” There are options behind the bar — cab, pinot noir and Chianti or a smattering of whites — but no list. It feels retro, like no-frills family restaurants of the 1980s, when sweet Riesling and chardonnay ruled. The revival is surprisingly on point.
Though Puppolo has been cooking since the January opening, he passed the baton to former RPI catering chef Jessica Skaarup last month. Given that Nonna’s recipes are notoriously measured in pinches and spoonfuls to taste, something is lost in translation: An alarmingly large bowl of spaghetti alfredo is so densely and powerfully salty with cheese that it’s hard to twist or eat; a personal pizza topped with bacon and Italian sausage is so weighed down by a mantle of cheese that the base is still doughy, and there’s barely a smear of tomato sauce. We accept a recommendation of fried battered calamari made “a la mamma,” with black olives, banana peppers and Parmesan cheese. The top rings are crisp but the bowl is awash in garlic butter and pickle juice, so the lower layer is too water-logged to eat.
Still, there’s something about Papa Brillo’s that holds promise even with growing pains in the kitchen. With staff and Puppolo checking in at tables, service is friendly. Families are warmly welcomed; the playlist is all Frankie Valli and Sinatra. The price point is right, with soups, salads and hot subs — all less than $15 — a good deal for lunch; a daily breakfast menu and weekend brunch is available now that they have enough staff to open all day. Dinner entrees are absurdly large for the price. The baked ziti ($12.95) or basic alfredo ($10.95 before toppings) could easily feed three to four. And a 10-ounce sirloin steak ($21.95) comes with only a bowl of spaghetti and sauce, as at a red-sauce joint. If steak needs seasoning, which I administer myself, it’s at least cooked a perfect rare.
Curiously, Puppolo, who eats mostly vegan at home, is planning a full-scale vegan menu to mirror Papa Brillo’s Italian offerings with vegan cheese and faux meat. To match the creamy limoncello cake, tiramisu and strawberry shortcake from Clifton Park baker J&S Watkins, he’s on the hunt for vegan desserts.
The spring cleanup means the patio should be ready for April, along with outside entertainment, trivia Wednesdays and the piano bar on Friday nights. Now, with the original sign hanging out front and helping hands on the pans, Puppolo has his sights on Saratoga Springs for a Papa Brillo’s Two.