Tino’s Italian Restaurant on Burnet Avenue does not have a website worth mentioning. The parking lot is small enough that regulars have developed informal agreements about whose spot is whose. And yet on any given Thursday night, the place is full — not festival-full, not influencer-full, just quietly, consistently full of people who found it and kept coming back.
Ray Derasmo has been running Tino’s for going on twenty years, which means he was already deep into his rhythm before most of Syracuse knew what a yelp review was. He’s the kind of owner you’d walk past three times without identifying him, because he doesn’t stand at the host stand looking proprietary. He’s usually in the kitchen, or talking to a table in the back, or standing near the door when you leave, which is when you finally realize who he is.
The room itself is small and feels smaller because of how they’ve managed to seat as many people as they have. Red checkered tablecloths, bread on the table without asking, a wine list that’s mercifully short. There are maybe twelve tables. The lighting is the kind that makes everyone look slightly better than they are, which is either a deliberate design choice or a fortunate accident — with Ray, you can’t always tell.
What you should order: the pasta fagioli if it’s cold out, and in Syracuse, it is almost always cold out. The veal marsala is the thing locals cite when they’re trying to explain what Tino’s actually is. It’s not complicated food. It is very good food, which is a distinction this city doesn’t always make carefully enough. The eggplant parmigiana is the sleeper — underordered, better than it has any right to be, and the kind of dish that prompts a table of adults to go quiet for a moment.
Dinner for two runs somewhere between forty and sixty dollars depending on whether you order wine and whether you can exercise any restraint around the tiramisu, which you probably can’t. The portions are not small. The doggy bag is not shameful. Ray would probably be mildly offended if you left without one.
The neighborhood is Eastside Syracuse, which lacks the foot traffic of Armory Square and is better for it. You drive there on purpose. People who eat at Tino’s have eaten at Tino’s before, which creates an atmosphere that’s less about discovery and more about return. First-timers are welcome; they’re just expected to keep up.
Ray has a theory — which he’ll share if you catch him at the right moment — that Italian-American cooking in this city suffered for a decade by trying to become something other than what it was. Too much truffle oil, too many ramps, not enough red sauce. Tino’s never moved in that direction, which was probably less a statement than a disposition. Ray cooks what he knows. It turns out that’s enough.
Reservations are accepted, and on weekends you should use them. Walk-ins get worked in when they can. The kitchen closes at nine, which feels early until you realize the staff has been there since two in the afternoon and Ray has been there longer than that.
