. Now, he’s selling Chicago-style Italian beef sandwiches from inside the same spot, with a side project called Frank Ranalli’s.
While there, Payne was introduced to giardiniera, a vegetable garnish made with a jumble of peppers , cauliflower, carrots, celery, oil and garlic. “The idea is that you take everything from the garden and put it together,” he says. But wait—who the heck is Frank Ranalli? He’s Payne’s great-grandfather, a first-generation Italian Canadian who lived in Hamilton. “My ancestors came from pretty much right smack in the middle of the boot,” says Payne, in the Abruzzo region, just east of Rome. “I used to visit grandpa Frank a few times a year, and we’d eat pasta, homemade sausages, stuffed peppers. He’s my connection to my Italian ancestry.
“Eating it dipped is a completely different experience. You have to stand a certain way to make sure the juice doesn’t drip all over you,” says Payne. “Spread your feet shoulder-width apart, hunch over at the hip and take a bite. Keep the wrapper underneath, because you don’t want to lose any of the beef or giardiniera.”