Longtime restaurateur Pignatello dies

Friday, Aug. 10, 2001 | 10:43 a.m.

Joe Pignatello, a legendary chef and restaurateur of a Las Vegas of yesteryear, who catered to everyone from mobsters to celebrities to common folk who loved Italian food, died Thursday. He was 75.

Pignatello, owner of Villa D' Este and Vesuvio restaurants and the personal Las Vegas-based chef for Frank Sinatra, died of leukemia at Nathan Adelson Hospice.

Services for the Las Vegas resident of 55 years will be 9 a.m. Monday at Palm Mortuary Henderson. Burial will be in the Southern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Boulder City.

From the 1960s to the '80s, Villa D' Este, a posh Italian cafe at 355 Convention Center Drive, was was one of the town's more popular non-casino eatery hangouts.

Late mobster Sam Giancana was a frequent visitor. Later, Sinatra would eat there on a daily basis whenever he was in town.

"He (Sinatra) was such a legend and -- if you knew him -- a real good man, but he was a hard man to get to know,' Pignatello told the Sun for Sinatra's May 15, 1998, obituary. "He was a wonderful person who loved life and loved to eat.'

Six months before Sinatra died, Pignatello decided to lift the ailing singer's spirits by preparing Sinatra's favorite meal -- and one of Pignatello's signature dishes -- homemade cheese ravioli and calamari salad.

"He told me it was the best meal he had had in four or five years,' Pignatello said.

So confident was Sinatra in Pignatello's skills, he never placed orders in Pignatello's restaurant, but instead left it up to the chef to surprise him. However, Pignatello recalled, a bottle of Chateau Lafitte and three or four deserts were a must with each meal.

Pignatello was born Joseph Daniel Pignatello on March 26, 1926, in Chicago. He served in the Navy during World War II and settled in Las Vegas in 1946.

In 1952, Pignatello met Sinatra and began preparing food for him and the famed entertainment Rat Pack including Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr., on the set of the original "Oceans Eleven" film.

Over the years, scores of celebrities and thousands of visitors and locals made regular visits to Pignatello's restaurants.

Pignatello is survived by his wife, Sharon Pignatello of Las Vegas; three sons, Joe Pignatello, Brian Pignatello and Beau Pignatello, all of Las Vegas; three daughters, Lisa Stribling of Bellflower, Calif., Jennifer Pignatello of Los Angeles and Jessica Pignatello of Las Vegas; a brother Tony Pignatello of Chicago; a sister, Rose Dorl of Chicago; and six grandchildren.

The family said donations can be made in Joe Pignatello's memory to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Nevada chapter.