Piccinini Brothers Piccinini Brothers 633 Ninth Ave. (betw. 44th ...
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Growing up in the Viccari house, owners of third generation family-run meat purveyor Piccinini Brothers, middle son Paul quickly grew accustomed to eating well. "Some people go to Peter Luger's and say it's the best steak they've ever tasted," says Paul, who has been in the business since the late 80s. "It's something I've grown up with my whole life. I go there and it's a very normal steak for me."
Piccinini Brothers has sustained its position in Hell's Kitchen since 1922, first as a neighborhood butcher and meeting place, later as one of the city's de facto quality meat wholesalers. "My grandfather would wait on a customer for about an hour and a half," recounts Viccari, who is artsy looking for a meat guy with his cropped dark hair and plush turtleneck sweater. "People would just come here and hang out. It was like he served the function of a bartender without the drinks."
But the constant presence of loitering theater personalities, housewives and restaurant owners came with a price. "My dad saw that it took nearly two hours to sell three chickens. He didn't think it was very cost effective, which may be a reason why he developed the wholesale business."
Today, Piccinini Brothers supplies about 100 restaurants every day, five days a week, with offerings that range from the predictable (beef, lamb, poultry, veal) to the exotic (rabbit, venison, ostrich, and wild boar, just to name a few). Civilians can still buy Piccinini meat a few doors down at Tartare, Viccari's small prepared-food shop that features its own butcher.
Like in the old days, most of the cuts are still hand-picked in the early morning hours at Hunts Point and the now trendy Gansevoort Markets (aka, the Meat Packing District, which is, in fact, a meat packing district). "My father's a very good teacher," says Paul, who works with brothers Richard and Peter. "He judges meat by the look of it, the feel of it; there are just so many factors. It becomes second nature very quickly."
The choicest bits make their way to the kitchens of some of the top names in food?Meyer, Bouley, Boulud, Vongerichten, McNally, DiSpirito?a testament to Dad's skills, to be sure.
"My father and grandfather had a theory. Their saying was 'cheap is expensive and expensive is cheap.' They always said that if you buy the best you can never go wrong with it."
The other edge at Piccinini Brothers is their Midtown location, rendering them capable of the kinds of emergency deliveries that are impossible for bridge-and-tunnel suppliers. "If we have something here and you need it, we can get it to you in 15 minutes to an hour," says Viccari. "We had a chef call us who forgot to order lamb shanks for New Year's Eve. He used 90 percent of what he got from here. We saved his New Year."
Though the business is primarily wholesale, some of the erstwhile neighborhood spirit remains. During the course of our interview, local chefs would sporadically pop their heads in for last-minute requests. One chef from the newish Theater District eatery Marseilles strolled in wearing his whites.
"What's going on, Paul?"
"Hey, how you doing?"
"I could use some lamb shanks if it's not out of the way. It's not that important, but if it could be done..."
After their brief visit, Viccari turns to me with a sigh. "It's funny. I feel like I'm an extension to a lot of these restaurants' kitchens."
[gabi@nypress.com](mailto:gabi@nypress.com)