It's the home of the other muffuletta. The folks at the century-old Central Grocery may get the lion's share of attention for their Italian cold cut and olive salad sandwich, but their Decatur Street neighbors at Frank's Restaurant also have been turning out the big, round, working-man's delicacies for 50 years. But there's a crucial distinction between the two.
Frank Gagliano Jr. said that the restaurant's recipe includes Genoa salami, thin-sliced ham, imported Swiss cheese and hand-mixed olive salad, which is a slightly different composition than the older Central Grocery sandwich. But the more important distinguishing characteristic of his family's muffulettas lies with the magic of the electric oven above the sandwich-making station.
Gagliano, 53, said that his dad, Frank Sr., moved from his native New York to New Orleans sometime in the 1950s. In 1965 he opened an Italian deli, not much different from the ones back home. He served a wide selection of sandwiches from two counters, but the muffuletta was the Decatur Street favorite.
Newspaper readers might recall that Frank's Restaurant was the scene of an FBI gambling-related racketeering investigation in the early 1990s that resulted in the indictment of Frank Sr., his son, Joe Gagliano, and others.
Frank Jr. does not revel in that history, pointing out that the investigation took place more than 20 years ago. Frank Sr. died in 2006.
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