If the red sauce-splattered walls could talk in this small two-story building in the heart of Midtown Manhattan, they’d have stories for days. Patsy’s Italian Restaurant, owned and run by the personable Scognamillo family, is a cultural touchstone in New York, a local icon akin to an Italian Empire State Building.

Salvatore Scognamillo, or Sal to everyone who knows him, is the grandson of the late namesake owner and only the third chef in nearly a century of business. Though Patsy’s has served countless plates of meatballs and veal Milanese — along with two cookbooks and even a line of jarred sauce — it’s the stories that we’re most interested in today.