Charmaine Bucco ordered a Chianti, so I ordered a Chianti.
To be clear, when I say Charmaine Bucco, I mean the actor Kathrine Narducci, who played restaurateur Artie Bucco’s wife in The Sopranos. We were at Da Nico, the Little Italy restaurant where the cast of the seminal HBO show had gathered to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the series premiere with a so-called "family dinner" and cocktail hour. Press was invited to the pre-party. The actual meal was private, but it did include a dish called "Carmela's Baked Ziti," so no one could proclaim, "So what, no fucking ziti now?"
Narducci was one of the first to arrive and when a waiter came over and asked her what she wanted to drink as we chatted she announced she wanted a wine. No, specifically she wanted a Chianti. I copied her. Hey, it’s The Sopranos—Chianti felt right. And it did hit the spot.
Everyone from Charmaine to Janice (Aida Turturro) to Big Pussy (Vincent Pastore) to Furio (Federico Castelluccio) had gathered for the event. Series writer Matthew Weiner, who would go on to create Mad Men, mingled in the crowd. All the Steves were present: Steve Buscemi, who started as a series director before going onto play Tony Blundetto in the fifth season, showed up, as did the fedora-clad Steven Van Zandt who played Silvio Dante and Steve Schirripa, a.k.a. Bobby Baccalieri. When I caught Buscemi, I inquired whether he gets asked more about Blundetto or helming the beloved "Pine Barrens" in season 3. He pondered for a moment and concluded, "Pine Barrens."
Tony’s Escalade was parked outside, affixed with a ticket that I think was real. Even a real life partial building collapse down the street couldn’t stop the festivities. It was hard to have a conversation without someone interrupting for a hug or a kiss. A TV behind the bar ran clips from the show, and the walls were affixed with set photos in addition to the usual rows of celebrities who have visited the establishment.
So what does the 25th anniversary of the show that both redefined the mob drama and television at large mean to the gathered group? “I'm getting fucking old,” Lorraine Bracco told me. Bracco—who played Tony's shrink, Dr. Melfi— now has a shock of gray hair rather than Melfi's brown mane. And the weight of time did hang over the event, despite all the celebration.
When I posed a similar question to series creator David Chase, he said the night meant “everything,” then added, “To see everybody together again, you know, probably for the last time.” I asked why he'd said that, taken aback by the morbidity. "Who knows? Time," he replied. "Time marches on."
Indeed, it was hard not to acknowledge the people that weren't there. There were those who just couldn't make it like Michael Imperioli and Edie Falco, but also, and more profoundly, those who've passed away, like Tony Soprano himself, James Gandolfini, who left us in 2013, and Tony Sirico, best known as Paulie Walnuts, who died in 2022.
"I talk to James," Turturro, who played Tony's wacky sister Janice, told me. After ordering a drink and handing me a potato croquette to eat, she continued, "I believe in that stuff, and it's more like in my heart, I know he's with me, like I talk to my mom and dad, and you know what? I'm like, Get me a fucking job, James."
Gandolfini's son Michael Gandolfini, who played young Tony in the prequel movie The Many Saints of Newark, pulled up a photo of himself as a little kid on set with director Tim Van Patten to show me. "I really do remember the Soprano house when I watch it," Michael said. "I remember sleeping in the Soprano bed when I'd take naps."
It's trite to say a cast is like a family, but plenty of people I spoke to explained they actually really were that close. "We would work 14, 16, 18, hours a day and then at the end of the night we would actually say, 'Hey, do you want to go grab a drink?'" said Federico Castelluccio, who played Furio, Tony's ponytailed Neapolitan enforcer. "You know, usually you get tired of people's faces." Castelluccio—who was born in Naples but raised in Paterson, and speaks without Furio's Italian accent—said he was particularly delighted to see Juliet Polsca, the costume designer responsible for Furio's flamboyant wardrobe of Versace and Versace-knockoff shirts.
The special cocktails this night included a "Made Martini" and a "We Invented This Sh*t," the latter of which was just an espresso martini. Waiters passed around mini meatballs and skewers with mozzarella and tomato, even though the real feast appeared to be arriving just as those of us who were not a part of la famiglia were set to leave—plates of calamari and parmigiana dripping in cheese.
The cast is used to good food though. "That's the difference between The Sopranos show and other shows," Schrippia said. "We really eat."
I asked Narducci, who ran the restaurant Nuovo Vesuvio on the show, if she could comment on the quality of the food at Da Nico, but she had only had appetizers so she said she couldn't judge. But Schirripa is apparently something of a regular, according to owner Angela Criscitelli, who was most starstruck by Bracco. It was an honor to serve the group, she explained, but not intimidating. "We're pretty good at this," she said.