Asti

“Enjoy operatic excerpts and classics as you wine and dine.”

Adolph’s Asti Restaurant
1925–December 31, 1999
Italian

Ownership:

Augusto “Augie” Mariani (1980–1999)

Adolph Mariani (1925–1980)

Executive Chef:

Orlando Baccadoni (1948)

Carlo Di Biasi (c. 1925)

Location:

13 East 12th Street (1947–1999)

79 West 12th Street (1925–1947)

Alternate Names:

Asti Restaurant (1934–c. 1950)

Adolph’s (1925–1934)

Film:

Big. Directed by Penny Marshall. 1988. [Scene of a birthday dinner for Josh (played by Tom Hanks). Owner Augie Mariani features as one of the singing waiters when the birthday cake is delivered; see photos at NYC in Film.]

An Evening at Asti’s with Ashley Putnam. Documentary. Directed by Rudi Goldman. New York: ABC Video, 1981. [Available on YouTube.]

Publications:

Phillips, Mark E. “Big (1988).” NYC in Film. Blog, December 31, 2018. [Features video footage of an evening at Asti, including singing waiters.]

Dennis, Brady. “Lorenzo Mariani ’73 Embraces His Opera Roots in Italy.” Taft Bulletin 82, 3 (Spring 2012): 22, 24-25.

Sietsema, Robert. “NYC’s 10 Weirdest Restaurants.” Village Voice, November 18, 2011. [Asti comes in at number 10.]

Kissel, Howard. “At Asti, The Fat Lady Is Singing: The Curtain Is Falling on a Restaurant Where Opera’s Been on the Menu for 75 Years.” New York Daily News, December 30, 1999: 54-55 (illustrated).

Miller, Bryan. “For an Odd City’s Individualists, Odd-Ball Dining.” New York Times, September 21, 1990: C1, C21 (illustrated).

“Adolph Mariani, 77, the Maestro of Asti, a 12th Street Landmark.” New York Times, April 9, 1980: D16. [Indicates Asti first opened its doors in 1928 and moved to its final location at 13 East 12th Street in 1947.]

McGovern, Isabel A. “Dining Around New York: A Coach House Dinner Tops Tour of the Village.” New York Herald Tribune, June 10, 1961: 9. [As the title suggests, article focuses mainly on The Coach House, but also notes, “On 12th St. is the Asti where Italian food and harmony by everyone who has a good voice contribute good eating and high spirits.”]

Paddleford, Clement. “Opera Lovers Swarm to Asti’s for Food Served with a Song.” New York Herald Tribune, May 15, 1948: 11 (illustrated).

Bass, Ralph. “Arias with Antipasto: They Go Hand in Hand at Asti’s, Where Opera’s Elite Meet to Eat.” New York Herald Tribune, March 2, 1947: 34 (illustrated). [Notes that Mariani opened Asti “15 years ago after a short hitch in opera.” This would place the opening date at 1932 instead of 1925 – see note (1) below.]

Notable Guests:

Jussi Björling (Opera Singer)

Franco Corelli (Opera Singer)

Noël Coward (Playwright): Coward “helped owner Adolph Mariani celebrate Asti’s 31st anniversary by joining guests in an impromptu aria and then signing autographs all around.” (1)

Joan Crawford (Actress)

Placido Domingo (Opera Singer & Conductor)

Mario Lanza (Actor & Opera Singer)

Giovanni Martinelli (Opera Singer)

Lauritz Melchior (Opera Singer)

Luciano Pavarotti (Opera Singer)

Elliott Roosevelt (Aviator & General)

Babe Ruth (Baseball Player)

Cesare Siepi (Opera Singer)

Joan Sutherland (Opera Singer)

Arturo Toscanini (Conductor)

Franco Zeffirelli (Director & Producer)

Notes:

It was not uncommon for guests of Asti – who often included opera stars – to break out in song, singing in quartets or sextets with the waiters – many of whom were opera singers themselves – and even owner Adolph Mariani, once an aspiring opera tenor. (2) The tradition of singing at Asti outlived Mariani and continued under his son’s ownership, with the New York Times noting in 1990 that the restaurant “presents perhaps the longest-running musical revue in New York. Everybody sings at Asti: the waiters, the bartenders, the customers, the coat-check girl, and the current owner, Augusto Mariani.” (3)

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In the early days of the restaurant, Mariani occasionally took advantage of his professional training as a singer by singing with a guitar on the street outside to attract customers. (4)

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Restaurant decorations included four seats from the old Metropolitan Opera House. (5)

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Facing the threat of development, Mariani purchased 13 East 12th Street in 1946 as a new location for the restaurant. (6) Asti’s original location at 79 West 12th Street was demolished shortly after the restaurant’s move to build Lawrence House, a 16-story apartment building completed in 1960.

The new location, 13 East 12th Street, was built as a house in c. 1852 for Emanuel Schwartz; at the time of the 1946 sale to Mariani, the house was in the hands of Eleanor Y. Bailey, whose family had owned the property since 1865 (and appears to have rented it out as apartments, according to an 1890 police census). (7) Several sources associate the property with President Chester Arthur, (8) though no evidence has been found to support his ownership of or residence in the house, and he was known to have spent most of his years in New York living at 123 Lexington Avenue, now known as the Chester A. Arthur Home. (9)

Asti’s location on the ground floor of 13 East 12th Street is now home to the steak restaurant Strip House. As of 2018, the Marianis still owned the property and rented out the space to the steakhouse (which maintains some of the same decor), while Augie Mariani continued to occupy an upstairs apartment. (10)

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Augie Mariani provided New York Daily News with a list of Asti’s “greatest hits” upon the restaurant’s closing in 1999 (11):

1. “Nessun dorma” from Turandot
2. “La donna è mobile” from Rigoletto
3. “Che gelida manina” from La Bohème
4. “O sole mio,” a Neapolitan folk song
5. “Un bel dì vedremo” from Madame Butterfly
6. “Vissi d’arte, vissi d’amore” from Tosca
7. “Arrivederci, Roma,” an Italian pop song
8. “Largo al facotum della città” from The Barber of Seville
9. “The Impossible Dream” from Man of La Mancha
10. “Anvil Chorus” from Il Trovatore
11. “Una voce poco fa” from The Barber of Seville
12. “Toreador Song” from Carmen
13. “Volare,” an Italian pop song

Business Card:

c. 1934–1950

[F2012.103.43]. Museum of the City of New York.

Menu:

November 1969 (Culinary Institute of America)

(1) McHarry, Charles. “On the Town: No Jailhouse Blues for Kayo.” New York Daily News, December 12, 1963: C16. [The date of this article and the mention of a 31st anniversary would indicate Asti opened in 1932, not 1925. It is possible that, having opened as a speakeasy, Asti dated its transition to an actual restaurant to a later year, i.e. 1932, and chose to celebrate this anniversary.]
(2) Bass, 1947.
(3) Miller, 1990.
(4) Kissel, 1999.
(5) ibid.
(6) “East Side Parcels in New Ownership.” New York Times, July 15, 1946: B34.
(7) ibid.; 1890 New York City Police Census, Volume 197 (Election District 19, Assembly District 7, Police Precinct 15). New York City Municipal Archives. Accessed March 18, 2025.
(8) Kissel, 1999; Cuozzo, Steve. “Adjoining Townhouses Could Sell for Over $30M.” New York Post, February 6, 2017.
(9) Greenwood, Richard, and Cecil McKithan. “Chester A. Arthur Home (National Register of Historic Places Inventory – Nomination Form).” United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, January 1978.
(10) Phillips, 2018.
(11) Kissel, 1999: 55.

Cover photo: Postcard. Ebay. Accessed May 4, 2017.