 Not pizza, we live in a pizza, Naples, they're good doing pizza, we're in it, we're in it. Coming from an Italian background, I never experienced anything like this. Italians and Chinese people arrive in New York City around the same time in the late 1800s. Their communities have existed side by side and they're both changing in a major way over 100 years later. In our first little Italy video, we tried a lot of old school spots, but now we're going to see how little Italy is reinventing itself with a stronger connection to Italy. Modern trends like veganism and even a fusion with Asian culture. Let's explore. Little Italy reinvented for 2021. Let's go. Alright everybody, real quick shout out to our sponsor Skillshare, which you probably have heard of. It is a huge online learning community with thousands of classes for everything of pursuing your passions, doing art, drawing, making pizza, making money, bettering yourself, just anything. And before I continue, they are offering something very cool. If you are the first thousand subscribers to click on the link down below, you can get a free trial of the premium membership. Time to explore your creativity. I just took three classes. The first one is from Thomas Frank about building an efficient creative system, meaning that he goes into how to maintain inspiration, building an efficient workspace like the physical space and even the 22nd rule. But that has nothing to do with food. I'm also learning how to tell a story in one minute by Hallease Narvez. This class is short, but it drew me in because she's talking about how telling a story can help people understand the humanity in all of us. And that hit home. I'm also learning some stock market technical analysis and chart reading from James Wynn. To be honest, I think the truth is that a lot of people are a little bit lost right now in what they want to do. Take a Skillshare class on it. Find out if you like the subject. Also, this is really good for people who want to explore that creative itch in their off time. These classes are great for people who actually have a real career, a real job, but just want a sensible way to pursue their passions. After talking to a lot of people that I know, I feel like a lot of people are lost. They're always like, oh, which do I do? I don't know if I love that. Well, you should just try to take a Skillshare class on it. See if you like it. It's a small price to pay to find out. So just to remind you, click on the link down below. The first thousand people will get a free trial to the premium membership. That is a good deal. It's very worth it. All right, watch the rest of that video. What's going on, guys? Welcome to another crawl through little Italy, one of New York's oldest and most traditional neighborhoods. Over the past few years, there's been a lot of talk about how neighborhoods like little Italy are changing or dying. But to be honest, guys, we're outside of one of the spots that is special here. And it stands out because it's bringing something new to the neighborhood. Marco, you're an Italian American that grew up in the neighborhood. Can you tell us what's so special about this spot? It's a Sardinia restaurant. It's an island off of Italy in the Mediterranean. And it's a second largest island off of the Mediterranean besides Sicily. You got a shout out, Sicily. Why is Sardinia a place that like most people have not heard of? I think it's a really close off region. I only know about it from passing here, looking at the menu. I'm like, oh, wow, Sardinia is pretty cool. Where is it? And it was in Italy, so I was like, let me do my research. It's really, really unique. It's not like going to the mainland islands and eating their food. They have their own unique identity. Right. It's a little bit like Hawaii to the U.S., right? Like, they're part of the U.S., but they're pretty different, too. And I'm really excited because everybody from the owner to the manager to the workers, they're all from Sardinia. So, guys, I'm looking forward to a very Sardinian meal. Yes. So the islands, yo, Marco, you've never seen this before. I've never seen this before. I've never seen it either. I thought it was pizza first, but it's not. This is called pane frattau. So it's based on Sardinian bread, tomato salsa, pecorino cheese, and eggs. And is this something that you, even in Italy, mainland, you would not find it? No, no, you'll find only Sardinia. And probably this one, you can find only some great people. Wow, it's not even in restaurant or whatever. My grandma maybe was used to give me this to go for the day or things like this. Pane frattau. One thing I noticed, the ingredients fresh. One element of this dish that's super low-key, but I love, is the texture of the bread underneath. It's like a little crispy and it has like a little bit of oil to it. Yo, I give this a four out of five. Absolutely, yeah. I give this a four out of five. I think there's a tendency to overdo things, which lends me to really appreciate things that are like the right amount of elements. Yeah. Before going into the starters, as you're coming from breakfast, we bring you an appetitivo. It's a shake it up campari and Sardinia wine. It's vermentino. It's gonna open up your stomach again. Ah, let's get into this. This reminds me sort of like eating a grapefruit of how like the bitterness has a grapefruit. I know that Sardinia is one of the top regions in the entire world in terms of life expectancy. This wine could just keep opening up the blood flow. This is a, we call it fritto misto. So it's a mix of deep-fried calamari with some zucchini and potato chip. Not everybody know, but tuna. Sardinia is one of the most famous places for tuna. We got Japanese coming from by our tuna and we still have the Sardinia bread to keep with our culture. But then we got a little bit of avocado because we're a new year, we have to adapt to the people. Sardinia calamari. I'm gonna say this right now. They didn't give you sauce because they don't even need sauce for that. All that one bite, the best calamari I've ever had. This is Sardinia and tuna. Some of the top chefs from around the world, your Morimoto's, your Jiro's, they love Sardinia and tuna. They don't get no much higher of a cosine than Jiro. Actually, I heard that in Japan, there's actually a bunch of chefs ranked higher than Jiro, but Jiro's just the only one that we know. Sardinia and tuna. Sardinia and tuna with some of the smoothies or if not the smoothest tuna I've ever had. The maloredus and the capillanes. It's very dry. Dry raw fish from the gray mullet, usually it's used in Sardinia, so you cook the egg, you put it under salt and you make it dry. So that's dry fish eggs? Yes. Sardinia pasta. Oh man. It is really simple. Simple. Yeah. Squirting tango tail. Wow. One of the best pastas I've ever tasted there. This is super good. This is a five out of five. Sardinians, no seafood, bro. That actually reminded me of some Japanese technique. Like some dashi. That is a must. Five out of five, 10 out of 10, 50 out of 50, 100 out of 100. All right, so now we are having, this is a brazato al canonao. So it means like it's short braised. So this is, let's say that it's kind of a dish that you can find in a lot of places in Italy and the north and the mountains because you have the polenta and the brazato, it's a way to cook that everybody use but this one it's cooked with the canonao. Canonao, it's a particular Sardinian grape, really, really famous and you can find it again all in Sardinia. So let's give a different flavor to the meat. What do you want the world to know about the Sardinian cuisine? Charlotte, are you giving me a big chance in the same time? A very hard one because, you know, Lots of pressure. A lot of pressure. I want to say one thing. It's not only about Sardinian food but like just following what you have been saying till now it's like all Italian food it's more simple than what is expected to be. It's not only Sardinia but it's Italian food in the real way. Two, three ingredients, four maybe, that's it. Keep it simple. So no cream, olive oil, simple stuff and this as well. One, two, three. That's it. Right, right. That's the fundamental. So that's my fundamental. Keep it simple. Play with ingredients. Not always the same one, a little bit of carbs, a little bit of meat, a little bit of just play. That's what the Mediterranean diet made. It's like playing on all ingredients. Sardinia is short rib. And everything is just fresh. That's a key ingredient that is, it's fresh and there's no GMOs, no processing, nothing out of a can. I think this is a great place to kick off little Italy crawl part two on to our next spot. So Christina, how hard was it to build this hybrid between the Japanese and Italian styles like mixed together? To be honest, it's not that hard. There are a lot of parrot lines that derive itself. You'll see our eggplant katsu. You know, everybody's got, a culture's got something breaded and fried. So you've got the like Milanese. You've got, you know, an eggplant farm. You know, you've got katsu. So we kind of mixed the two together in different techniques and trying to add some flavor profiles. We don't try and force the fusion. Kimiko, like we said, on a cross-section of Chinatown, little Italy and Nolita. I'm super excited. Huge shout out to Chef Christine. This is one of the most interesting restaurants in quite possibly the planet Earth. Totalini wontons. I want to say that that was 60% wonton, 40% totalini. The broth is a Japanese broth that they based off of Cantonese broth. So I know Japanese, they're very specific with everything when they, you know, sort of reference it. One ton totalini, guys. That's fusion for real, for real. We have our fusion Asian Italian pizzas in front of us. I've got a mortadella on a crispy scallion crust like a tsungyo bing, but slightly with less tsung. Lobster uni with the scallion pancake crust. All right, let's try it. Let's try it. Asian Italian pizzas. New York style. That's amazing. You got the lobster. They give you nice pieces of lobster. The tomatoes are fresh and the scallion pancake. Oh my God. This is the most unique pizza I've ever had. I wouldn't have thought in a million years I would have lobster tomatoes on a scallion pancake. I mean, it doesn't get better than that. That's a 5 out of 5. I think if you're looking for something more conventionally appealing to the Western palate, you got to get the mortadella. But if you want to really stretch yourself and if you're a foodie's foodie, you come and get the lobster uni. Okay, we have our final four Asian Italian fusion dishes here at Kimika. We are looking at a ikura shiso spaghetti. We have uni wagyu grilled. We have a tapoki, which is a Korean rice cake chopped up in a lasagna format. That looks absolutely amazing. I had my eye on that for less than 10, 15 minutes when the guy brought it over. A shishito pepper grilled, which is very typical of Japanese izakaya, right? But the thing that's unique about it is it has that Sardinian fish roe. And that's from a pastry fee. Oh, wow. That's the cheesy shiso. Kimchi lasagna. Oh, that's good. My grandma will look at this and be like, what are you doing? This isn't the conservative Italian American meal. But until she tries it, her opinion don't matter. Still love you, grandma. I don't think I've ever seen Kim Chi work through a dish so subtly because Kim Chi is such a not a subtle flavor. But somehow they subtly mix it into the Kimchi lasagna. And I give that actually a five out of five. 100%. This is one of the best things I've ever ate before. No cap. From the crunchiness to the spicy sauce, it's lasagna. It has just a mixture of different flavors in there. And you can really taste the Asian side and the Italian side. You can't know for sure. Except for the Kimchi taste. I love that. This is the eggplant parm. But it's actually an eggplant katsu. Let's do it. All right, let's try it with the other sauce. That's like eggplant sauce. Uli wagyu mochi. This is fascinating. That was my first time having mochi and beef together. One thing that I found that was amazing was that wagyu beef. That was some high-end beef. Never had wagyu beef before. Ro ro ro spaghetti. This is three different types of fish ro in one spaghetti. Correction. It's pork. Sorry. That's magnificent. This is the mochi buballoncini. Mochi hazelnut and nutella. Pressed it with sesame and hazelnuts. Dusted in powdered sugar. Oh, my goodness. So you got all bunch of cultures in there. We got the jean dough from the Cantonese side. The mochi from the Japanese side. And of course, the ferrero roche nutella from the Italian side. Mochi buballoncini. This reminds me of like a Italian rice bowl dessert. Yo, a big shout out to Chef Christine. Shout out to Doran. Because I think it's hard enough to blend two cultures, but you got three in here. Blend it very, very masterfully. Yo, Marco. What did you think of chimica? Definitely something new and something that I think every Italian-American should experience. So the new wave is here and I'm surfing it. Let's go check up some more spots. Take a look. So obviously, you know, the Reppin NYC very hard. It is like your traditional slice shop, right? Heavy streetwear. Ame Leon Dore is right across the street. Here, you're playing hip hop. You got pizza. It's a very New York scene right now. All right, you guys, we're at Upside Pizza. This is of their square grandma slices. This is the one they always recommend. It's super simple nowadays. Maybe it's going back to the Italian roots of just sauce and bread. Upside pizza. Wow, they're doing something right over at Upside Pizza for sure. Come on. I'm not crazy about mushrooms, but this just changed my mind. To me, this vodka slice is like the tagliatelle at a pistol. Upside Pizza has multiple locations. I think, you know, part of me, I always want to support the mom-and-pops, but I can't even front. They're doing such a good job with the pizza. This just got into my top three. Slice of New York City. Come get some streetwear. There's matcha, drink spots around the corner, and come get a slice at Upside. All right, so we just came from Nolita, kind of our streetwear hip hop pizza spot upside, and now we're at like a Saturday Night Fever themed spot. This spot is a new spot about a year and a half old, but it has that vintage old-school look inside. So you said they have an interesting what double-stacked slice that's from Saturday Night Fever? Yeah, so in the beginning of the movie, Tony Monero, John Travolta, he had one slice of pizza. Put another slice of pizza on top of that, and he started eating it. All right, genius or Scientologist. Ooh. We're looking at a margarita, plain cheese, white slice, pinwheels, pepperoni, and then broccoli roms. You know what I noticed about all these new-school pizza spots that opened up in the past year? They are focused on making sure the aesthetics are really strong. I have never, ever eaten anything like that before. I'm not even saying I love this. I'm just saying I've never had it. Yeah. Whoa, all right. This cheese is packed on. There's really not a lot of sauce because there is no marinara sauce in this. How do you guys compare and contrast it with upside? Because it tastes different. So I think Monero, I think it's a much crispier crunch. No, it's tough to say which one's better, to be honest. It's tough, yeah. They're both neck and neck. You know what, hey, you never had anything like that before. I'm gonna go ahead and say I found this white slice right here. It might be better than the white slice at upside, but upside also, you know, they have the vodka and the pep, which I think might be stronger than here. You know, the white slice with the Mike's hot honey on it. For me, Moneros, that's my five out of five. If you guys want kind of a spicy veggie cheese roll, try the pinwheel. It's interesting. You may or may not like it, but I'm telling you to try it. No, I totally feel like Moneros is where I would go in my basketball clothes after I hooked at the park and I wanted a slice because I don't know if I would feel comfortable going to Lolita. All right, you guys, our next stop on our modern little Italy food crawl is Galliotto's. And I think that this is probably something that is so symbolic of where things are headed. They're paying homage to the 1920s where our ancestors would come in with a nice rustic look, grab their produce, grab their fresh pastas and walk out and go about their way. It has like a old, it's an old school feel, but it's modern because it's vegan. Marco, let's address the gorilla in the room. A stereotypical Italian, you know, wise guy does not like vegan stuff. Typically, no. They would be against it, right? Yeah, typically they want the chicken bomb. They want the spaghetti and meatballs. They want a healthier lifestyle. They come here. Vegan Italian market. Let's check it out. You've got a vegan pesto which normally uses cheese, which is obviously not vegan because it comes from a cow. This is obviously a cream sauce that is also vegan, but this rainbow cake typically made with what? With eggs and you have milk. Marco, would you one of your favorite things from the Italian video? And I'll rewind and you said, yo, my favorite is the rainbow cake. Now, can the vegan rainbow cake match up? I'm skeptical. Vegan Italians. It's a little more clumpier than a regular rainbow cookie. It's vegan, obviously, but damn, this is really good. I think the chocolate sticks out the most. Don't be mad. I like this better. I was like, this is my favorite rainbow cake I've ever had. Let me be the tiebreaker. I'll tell you this. I've only had rainbow cookie, probably three to four times in my life. That is the best one I've ever had. Oh, about number no. I do think a lot of vegan spots, when they make something that people know is not usually vegan. They like putting some extra work, you know what I'm saying? And they know how to make it taste good. Go with the vegan pesto. Oh, yeah, let me try this. Dude, that's really good. Could you go? No. I give this vegan pesto the five out of five. All right. I'm giving that rainbow cookie the five out of five. I give everything a five out of five. Deep cut Italian sodas. You have not seen these at your local grocery store. Oh, this is kind of bitter. Vegan Italian sandwiches. This is probably the one that everybody's looking at right now. This is a vegan meatball parm. Made with impossible meat. But it's not just a regular one from like your sub shop because the bread is different. The bread is different. Look, they didn't even cut it all on the sides. Vegan meatball parm. That is slamming. You can not talk. You can't talk. Amazing vegan meatballs. I'm about to go buy some Beyond Meat stock right now. That was one of the best meatball marinara sandwiches I've ever had. I got to give it a five out of five for sure. I grew up with a lot of old school Italians around me. We never eat nothing vegan. And when we did, you kind of got made fun of. I'm just happy that we have a modernized vegan spot in literally which I would never go would ever be here. You got two other sandwiches here. One is mushroom and one is tomato based. No, no, no, this is not just mushroom. It's a portobello. Oh, portobello. It's a portobello, funghi. I got to try this tomato one because this is going to be super simple. That's caprese. Caprese. Portobello. Wow. Bringing all my Italians over here. I'll tell you that. This caprese is impressive. Andrew, what are your final takeaways about Galliottos? I always imagine that Italian Americans was that group of people who generally was very much against veganism, like you said, right? But it's kind of ironic because I think vegan Italian food works really well. You guys, we are at the hottest spot in little Italy right now in terms of new spots that are just sort of defining the movement where we at, Marco. Yo, we're at Gelso and Gran in the heart of little Italy. They have culinary chefs that are just fixing these hybrid Italian meals that I've never even seen before. Thai basil pesto pasta. Here you have crust pistachios on top and then you have a spicy Thai basil sauce infused into it. Thai pesto. The Thai chilies are there, but it's subtle. That was really, really good. Brown butter capinelli. This definitely is very, very different. I would almost call it New Italian American. We've actually got a calzone pizza, a cal pizza. This is something that is crazy because you have a calzone, which traditionally just has cheese in it. It might have ham, bakarab, and then you have your nice, it looks sort of like a Neapolitan style pizza, right? You can say maybe sort of cal pizza. Wow, that was really delicious. That might be one of the best calzones I think I've ever had. All right, you guys, we are onto our last dish before our gigantic cannoli here at Gelso and Gran. Andrew, this is a classic Mediterranean dish, gigantic octopus tentacles. You were saying growing up Italian American, Marco, you guys did eat a lot of squid, but not as much octopus. Not as much octopus because it did cost a lot more money. Okay, so here are the kind of new school elements. One, it's fried. Two, it has like crispy potatoes and vegetables and celery, and then it has this olive aioli here at the bottom, which I'm just gonna dab it in. And that's like New School Italian right there. It's a little tentacle pieces. On the end they get fried, so it's a little extra crispy. I know it looks weird. Don't knock until you try it. That was to me the best dish that we had. I give that a five out of five here at Gelso and Gran Day. I'm gonna have to give it a five out of five as well. I'm gonna go with the pesto. I'm gonna eat the pesto for me just because it seems like such a difficult dish to reinvent, but even that 15% hybrid was able to like just, you know, switch it up. All right, Marco, last but not least, this is sort of the grand finale and sort of really symbolizes what they're doing here at Gelso and Gran, right? Just something different. It looks like something from Disneyland. No, it does, seriously. Go hit it, man. Yo, what we got inside here? Okay, so you have a mixture of candy. You have red velvet cream. Red velvet cannoli. I feel like I'm eating the most high-end cannoli ever in my life. Yo, that's good. It tastes much more like cake than anything. That's a cool experience. I mean, coming to Gelso and Gran, you get some kind of fusion dishes and then you get the crazy big cannoli. And as crazy and progressive as Gelso and Gran was, we have another spot that might even just further epitomize it. Aren't you guys our next spot on our modern little Italy crawl? It's just outside of little Italy, but this spot is actually a wacky derivative of Italian-American food. I know we've been trying a lot of stuff where it's like international influences, influences from Italy, Italy, Sardinia, but we kind of got to take it back to a spot opened up by like a fifth-generation guy like you. Yeah, yeah. And this is a neighborhood spot right here, you know? And for me, like, I don't find none of this stuff in little Italy. Italian stromboli. We've got meatball sliders made with garlic knots. We've got garlic knot pizza with pepperoni sliders. And you've got the cheesiest shrimp linguine on planet Earth. This has got to be the weirdest thing I've ever seen. Not weird necessarily, because I just never even conceived it. I would have never thought to toss the calamari in buffalo sauce. Yeah, because usually you just have the side of marinara sauce. So the buffalo one pretty whacked out. Wacky Italian-American. All right, you got this buffalo calamari. I thought I wasn't gonna like it. With the buffalo blue cheese, I like it. Yo, it hits. Last time I had a stromboli was from Sabaro. It was really, really old, late at night. I didn't like it, but here it goes. Everything here has an extreme OD amount of cheese. Is that very representative of sort of like a lot of Sicilian-American spots, right? Oh, absolutely. And that's just the Italian-American ways that we overdue the dish. But it works. It works, yeah, it works. People from Sardinia would watch me eat this right now. Probably want to smack me. For myself, a four out of five. There we go. On the buffalo wing flavor calamari. Beef pizza slider. So you've got a slice of pepperoni. You've got a beef patty inside of a garlic knot covered in parmesan oil, everything. Garlic knot slider. I mean, it's taking the tasty garlic knot and turning it into a bun. That's a five out of five right there. It is. My man. This is honestly the best thing I salute you. Yeah, for sure. Some of these dishes, a cheaper version or maybe a lower quality version, might be served at a chain restaurant that doesn't really specialize in Italian food. But as you're in, you're at an Italian spot eating American fusion game day food. Yo, this is the best stromboli I've ever had. If you guys ever get a chance to come here, it's jam-packed with a whole bunch of peppers. Kind of a lot of the same things you might get in one of those Italian sandwiches, but it's in a light crispy baked shell with tons of cheese. Overall, this is pretty good. This just looks like some linguine with pasta sauce. What makes it different? All the cheese. Usually you have it with clams, but today we went for the shrimp. What would it be a little different? Yeah, this is a gigantic shrimp. You guys can't even see because it's so covered in cheese. Shrimp linguine with extreme cheese. You guys, it's not much to look at, but honestly, it's super good. It's amazing. Five out of five. Everything on the table. Five out of five. Margaret, don't lie. You're trying to get a job here. Ah, I need a... Okay, that was the meatball parm slider. Marco, what are you going with? This one or the vegan one from Galliano? Oh man, all right. I'm trying to live a healthier lifestyle. So I got to go with the vegan one. The vegan one was amazing. What are the two items that they got to get here? Probably the buffalo wing calamari and obviously the pizza slider. I got to be honest. You're right. You've got to get these two dishes. They're really an Italian-American dish. It's something that's so whacked out that you won't see probably anywhere but the United States. I'm saying silojis might be the only one that has them. Sometimes there's a sense that people want to get away from that old-school Italian-American flavors and style but silojis is leaning into it and just changing it up and having fun with it. And that's what I like. I don't think that you ever have to go away from it just because there's more authentic current Italian influences coming in. I think you just got to do something differently with it. New York's Little Italy is undergoing a renaissance in 2021. Some of the OG spots are still around from 100 years ago but there's a whole new crop popping up. Some of the shops are straight from Italian provinces like Sardinia, some are co-owned by non-Italians who studied Italian food and some are owned by old-school Italian families who want to adapt to the modern vegan era. Sometimes things need to change or they'll go away forever and I think Little Italy's vibe is so special it'll be around for a long time.