My 13 Summers of Red Sauce at Tony's in Atlantic City | Bon Appétit
"Eating at Tony’s Baltimore Grill in Atlantic City, New Jersey, is like that one scene in every cheesy Italian-American movie where all of the characters sit down to have a family dinner. It’s full of big groups of loud people, and the matriarch is always reaching over everyone, plopping a meatball onto her son’s plate. When I think of Tony’s, I think of red. Red-rimmed plates, red plastic baskets filled with crunchy-on-the-outside, pillowy-soft-on-the-inside Italian bread, and most importantly, the red sauce. Scattered between all the red baskets are white ramekins of grated Parmesan. Nothing has changed about Tony’s since my South Philly Italian-American grandparents stepped through that door in the 1950s. The antipasto platters are something you only see in mom-and-pop restaurants in the tristate area: full rounds of sliced deli salami, two pieces of the whitest provolone cheese, pepperoncini the color of a highlighter, and canned black olives that we’d promptly place on our fingertips. Below, my life as chronicled in 13 orders at Tony’s Baltimore Grill." - ByEmily Schultz
