He’s making ends meat.
A Long Island culinary artist has exactly what home grillers need for their barbecue to stand out from the rest this summer — a delectable lamb skewer from Italy’s Adriatic coast that isn’t sold anywhere else stateside.
“I grew up with this stuff,” East Meadow’s Tom Conte told The Post of the succulent arrosticini his company, D’Abruzzo — named for the treat’s origin in Abruzzo — mass produces nationwide and locally sells cooked at major markets like Smorgasburg in Brooklyn.
“You have lots of Italian immigrants from Campania and Sicily, but not a lot from Abruzzo, so there wasn’t arrosticini here. It just made sense, I had to do it.”
The 42-year-old father of three, who has worked in the restaurant business his whole life, took a leap of faith in 2017 and Marco Polo’d the simple skewer over to America. Conte uses the recipe that his father, who came to the US as an 18-year-old from Abruzzo, had been grilling up on wooden sticks for decades.
“It’s the most typical barbecue in Abruzzo,” he added. “Everywhere you go, you have it there.”
The trick to perfecting the entree that will fill you up in five or so sticks is that less is more, said Conte, who has traveled overseas more than 30 times to hone his craft. They are typically served only with bread and olive oil at restaurants over on the boot, according to Conte.
“It’s the way that we butcher it, all you need to do is add sea salt on top of the grill and it’s perfect. No sauces, no marinades, nothing else,” he said of the quick cooking delight prepared on an Italian-made, open-face fornacella grill.
“It’s really good fat that we use that gets placed between the meat. So when you’re grilling, it melts onto the meat and creates almost like a butter flavor. With the saltiness from the sea salt, it really needs nothing else.”
While Conte has been spreading the good news at food festivals up and down the East Coast — he has also shipped as far as Hawaii and Venezuela — fellow paisan, Stanley Tucci, recently showcased arrosticini in the Abruzzo episode of his show “Tucci in Italy.”
“His love for it, all of a sudden, people were just Google searching it all the time. ‘Oh my gosh, I can get this in the United States?!’ I’m getting emails, calls, and massive orders. It’s nuts,” Conte said.
Things have been going so well lately that he has recently relocated from Westbury to a larger Farmingdale production site.
“Tucci really picked us up with that part of the business.”
Sticking to it
Even before then, Conte said “educating” customers on arrosticini was an easy sell due to the rich scent emanating from the grill.
It quickly took off as consumers not only buy the meat in packs of 26, but also order fornacella grills and special terracotta jars to place atop the outdoor cooker to keep the skewers warm.
Conte claims that one obsessed New Jersey customer has three grills, six jars and resupplies weekly.
He added that a chicken variant he makes is also a hit in the Chinese community, as several customers purchase the white meat to cook and add their own Asian spices to it.
And not only does Conte have his kids hooked, but neighbors who catch the scent of the wood-fired extravaganza during home barbecues always find themselves popping over.
“I end up sharing with everybody,” he joked.
Although he uses wood chips to grill on his specialized fornacella, arrosticini can also be easily cooked on a Weber or standard barbecue for those looking to get started sizzlin’ this summer.
As to what the fuss is about, customers will understand with their first bite, according to the chef.
“You have to try it to understand — and when you do, you will be speechless.”
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