Dominic Massa / WWL
NEW ORLEANS - Tony Angello, owner of the beloved Lakeview restaurant that bore his name and was famous for home-cooked versions of Creole Italian specialties, has died. He was 88.
Known to regular customers as "Mr. Tony," Angello's health had been failing recently after a fall, according to family members, and he died after complications from surgery.
Even though he had been slowing down recently, he remained a fixture at the restaurant up until just a few months ago, greeting friends and loyal regulars with his shy smile and warm handshakes and hugs.
The restaurant opened at the corner of Fleur de Lis Drive and Harrison Avenue in Lakeview in 1972, after several years in Gentilly. The Lakeview place looked more like a home than a restaurant, and that feeling was matched in the food and atmosphere, as well as in the physical appearance.
Angello spent more than 30 years in the kitchen and dining rooms of his restaurant, until Hurricane Katrina devastated the building and the surrounding neighborhood. The 2005 levee breach at the 17th Street Canal put 11 feet of water in the building for almost three weeks. Even though he was in his 80s at the time, friends and family members said Angello never thought of retiring. According to the restaurant's website, on May 9, 2007, on his grandson's 16th birthday, "Mr. Tony" reopened the restaurant.
"Few local restaurants enjoy as enthusiastic a group of regular customers than does Tony Angello's," wrote WWL Radio restaurant critic and host Tom Fitzmorris in a recent review. "The draw is an assortment of complete dinners at very attractive prices, with enough unique items to make dining here seem special. The ultimate menu, ordered by three out of four diners, is the 'Feed Me, Mr. Tony,' with a dozen or so specials of the evening in four or five courses."
Favorites and frequent "Feed Me" items included the lobster cup, Eggplant Tina and Angello's versions of pasta bordelaise, osso bucco, stuffed shrimp, cannelloni, veal or eggplant Parmigiana and any number of other "red gravy" favorites.
Angello was honored as Restaurateur of the Year by the Louisiana Restaurant Association in 2009.
Funeral arrangements are pending.
