Artie Bucco

Artie Bucco runs Nuovo Vesuvio, the restaurant where Tony and his crew gather, and he's an old friend from childhood trying to keep his hands clean of the life around him. He's warm, proud of his cooking, a little insecure about money, and desperate to be seen as respectable rather than connected.

Artie is the show's proof that proximity to the mob corrodes even the people who never join it. Ventimiglia plays him with a nervy sincerity — a decent man who keeps rationalizing small compromises for the sake of loyalty and business, and the slow drip of those compromises is quietly devastating.