Pasta shells and more at Shore

Frank Sinatra, may he rest in peace, must be the patron saint of spaghetti.

It's the only way to explain why every red-gravy joint on the East Coast has a shrine to the man, from the portraits of a fedora-topped young Frank to the endlessly looped soundtrack of his crooner hits that are as ubiquitous as little shakers of grated parmesan cheese.

The Sinatra schtick gets personal, though, when it comes to Patsy's, the 64-year-old Manhattan landmark that was Sinatra's favorite Italian restaurant. Sal Scognamillo, Patsy's third-generation owner, got permission from the Sinatra family to use that claim, and boy, Ol' Blue Eyes, has he indulged. It was a marketing boon for the restaurant's cookbook and jarred supermarket sauces. And the tout has recently been blaring from local billboards to promote the opening of Patsy's first offshoot, in the Atlantic City Hilton casino.

Considering that this Hilton used to be the Golden Nugget, where Sinatra was a regular, the marriage would seem ideal. But the elderly lady waiting in line at the new Patsy's wasn't buying it.

"I'm not going to eat here just because Frank did," she grumbled. "I liked the old place here, Caruso's."

Indeed, Caruso's had a good run for nearly two decades. But it wasn't the kind of name-brand eatery that marks the new generation of casino restaurant, said A.C. Hilton president Tony Rodio. A legend like Patsy's, he said, can draw the coveted New York-North Jersey crowd.

But is Patsy's their best bet for serious pasta at the beach? After all, you can have a "Big Night" meal virtually every night down the Shore, where there are literally hundreds of Italian restaurants serving every shade of tomato gravy. That includes two other notable newcomers on Long Beach Island and in Ventnor. And there are formidable oldies to consider, too, including a 12-table (almost) secret cellar in Atlantic City, and an aging roadhouse on the Black Horse Pike that boldly claims to serve the "World's Best Spaghetti."

Is that even possible? I had to know.

Patsy's

In the spectrum of name brands that have corrupted the tradition of Italian American cooking, Patsy's is thankfully still a long way away from the fakery of Olive Garden or Buca di Beppo.

True, the Atlantic City branch reheats bulk sauces from the plant that bottles its supermarket products. But someone was clearly in the kitchen really finishing the job - on our night, the ebullient Sal Scognamillo himself. And frankly, the sauces were pretty good.