The Dish: Sal's Famous Meatballs with Marc Vetri and his dad, Sal
PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- When Marc Vetri's Amis restaurant originally opened in 2010, a family favorite was on the menu: Sal's Famous Meatballs.
Sal is Marc's dad, and it's still debatable whether the meatballs are famous because of Sal, or the other way around.
They're both stars.
Lucky us, we can now make them ourselves, because the Vetri family invited us into their home to learn the recipe that actually started way before Sal.
"I used to watch my mother make them," said Sal Vetri. "I'd go to church and come home and the meatballs would be frying."
Sal's mother, Jenny, was an immigrant from Sicily.
"Every Sunday, we'd have meatballs, sausage and peppers, and then lasagna, artichokes," said Sal. "It was a feast. We started at 12 p.m. and we would be done at four."
Those famous meatballs start with the trifecta of ground meats: veal, pork and beef.
"Veal, pork and beef," said Marc. "That's the secret of life!"
You add two eggs to the meat, parsley and about a cup of freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese.
"A little bit of salt and a little bit of garlic," said Marc.
Their secret? Soak two pieces of white bread in milk and add it to the meat mixture.
Then, start to roll the meatballs. Each one gets dredged in flour - and there's a trick to it.
"You clean your hands before and after each one, so the meat doesn't stick," said Sal. He keeps a little bowl of water nearby.
"Now, you start to fry up all of the sides, nice and brown," said Marc.
That seals in the juices. You can either fry them entirely and eat them that way, or do a partial fry and finish cooking them in the sauce.
"They've been in here about 20 minutes," said Marc.
Top the meatballs off with some grated cheese and enjoy! Marc says it's truly a scented memory.
"They just kind of stick with you for the rest of your life," he says. "When I eat this, I'm like 'Oh my God.' It feels amazing."
Amis closed a few years ago, but Marc still serves the meatballs at Pizzeria Salvy in Center City. Salvy is dad's nickname and the restaurant is a nod to him.
"It all started with a meatball," Marc laughs. "Every amazing story starts with a meatball."
CLICK HERE for the full recipe for Sal's Famous Meatballs.
Vetri Cucina's 25th Anniversary and what's next for Marc Vetri
For the past 25 years, Marc has truly become a force in Philadelphia's food scene.
In 1998, he opened his namesake restaurant on Spruce Street, Vetri Cucina.
"We opened up, it was a Tuesday," said. "I think we had about 11 reservations. And wow, yeah, it was 25 years ago. It just flew by."
Sal recalls the sacrifice that went into creating what would become a Philly institution.
"He and I gutted the place," he said. "We pulled up the carpeting. We brought in the floor tiles. We laid the wood floor."
For this 25th anniversary, Vetri asked customers to borrow the hand-painted menus they saved throughout the year. Right now, he has them all hanging, as sort of an art display.
"I'm so lucky, because I found something that I really love," he said. " I stuck everything into it."
Sal also reminisced about the full circle connection to another one of Marc's restaurants, Fiorella, the old sausage shop.
"I used to go to Bartlett Junior High, which was 11th and Christian. I used to walk by Fiorella every day. I didn't know that one day it would be his," he said.
Next month, Marc is opening a Fiorella in Las Vegas, his third restaurant in Sin City.
"It's really awesome to have East Coast restaurants and West Coast restaurants, the same ones," he says. "People will always say, 'We got to go to the original one in Philly!"
