Al Pacino has played some of the most famous Italian-American characters in movie history, but the dish he keeps returning to is far simpler: spaghetti aglio e olio. The actor, born in New York City to Sicilian immigrants and raised in The Bronx by his mother and grandparents, has long leaned toward the pasta when he eats at an Italian restaurant.
Daniel Bellino Zwicke, who recalled regularly serving Pacino at Barbetta Ristorante in New York City, said the actor would always order the dish there even though it was not on the menu. That preference fits a public image Pacino has described himself, saying, “In America, most everybody who's Italian is half Italian. Except me. I'm all Italian. I'm mostly Sicilian, and I have a little bit of Neapolitan in me. You get your full dose with me.”
The choice also makes sense in the kitchen. Spaghetti aglio e olio comes from Campania, where Naples is the capital, and it is known as a dish built on just 3 ingredients. Many versions add red chili flakes, chopped Italian parsley, grated parmesan cheese, grated lemon zest or toasted flavored breadcrumbs, but the core remains plain and affordable, the kind of southern Italian cooking that never needed dressing up.
That same instinct showed up in a more modern setting when Pacino appeared in Bad Bunny’s “Monaco” video as a guest dining at Carbone Restaurant in New York. Carbone’s menu does not list spaghetti aglio e olio, though it does offer a dish called angel hair AOP, leaving Pacino’s long-running order tied to a restaurant that, in Barbetta’s case, is now closed. The pattern is hard to miss: the actor’s signature pasta choice has stayed aligned with the heritage he has claimed for years, and with the plain southern Italian dish that best matches it.
