Mamma Leone’s

“Cook good Italian food and give people plenty. They’ll come.”

Mamma Leone’s Ristorante
April 27, 1906–1994
Italian

Alternate Names:

Leone’s (1944–1959)

Mother Leone’s (1906–1944)

Ownership:

Restaurant Associates (1959–1994)

Gene Leone (1944–1959)

“Mamma” Luisa Leone (1906–1944)

Location:

261 West 44th Street (1988–1994)

239 West 48th Street (1917–1987)

209 West 38th Street (1906-1917)

Film:

25 Years with Lidia: A Culinary Jubilee. Documentary (Eight-part series). Produced by Lidia Bastianich and Laurie Donnelly. PBS, 2023. Premiered December 18, 2023. [In the second episode, “Discovering Lidia: The First Restaurant,” Mamma Leone’s is mentioned as an early date restaurant for Felidia owners Lidia and Felice Bastianich, and Lidia travels to the New York Public Library to view an old menu.]

Publications:

“Wanderlust: 14 Photographers & Artists Share Their Dreamy Summer Dispatches.” W Magazine, July 21, 2025. [Photographer Ming Smith shares a photo from Mamma Leone’s in 1983.]

Ray, Rachael. “Veal Francese.” RachaelRayShow.com, May 9, 2022.

Ray, Rachael. “Mamma Leone’s-Style Veal Parmigiana.” RachaelRayShow.com, March 8, 2022. [Updated June 21, 2022].

Ray, Rachael. “Memories of Mamma Leone’s” in Rachael Ray 50: Memories and Meals from a Sweet and Savory Life. New York: Ballantine Books, 2019 (illustrated, menu). [Features recipes inspired by the restaurant.]

Badertscher, Vera Marie. “Book Review: Restaurants in American Food History.” Ancestors in Aprons. Blog, January 27, 2017.

Kramer, Jane. “Dining Down Memory Lane.” New Yorker, September 12, 2016. [Published in the September 19, 2016 print issue.]

Carter, Graydon. “The Four Seasons: The People.” In The Four Seasons, Auction 26 July 2016. Auction catalogue. Chicago: Wright, 2016: 17.

Freedman, Paul. Ten Restaurants That Changed America. New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2016.

Grimes, William. Appetite City: A Culinary History of New York. New York: North Point Press, 2009: 277.

New York Like a Native. New York: Stream of Consciousness, 2009: 149.

Mariani, John, and Galina Mariani. The Italian American Cookbook. Boston: Harvard Common Press, 2000.

“Mamma Leone Shuts Doors in Manhattan.” New York Times, January 11, 1994: B4.

Miller, Bryan. “Restaurants.” New York Times, June 17, 1988: C24.

Ferrell, Sarah. “Where the Fare Served Is Fantasy.” New York Times, September 10, 1986: C8. [Ferrell discusses New York’s “tourist restaurants,” including Mamma Leone’s and Hawaii Kai.]

Martin, Douglas. “Mamma Leone’s: Spicy Tales of Sweet Success.” New York Times, September 19, 1987: 33.

Britchky, Seymour. The Restaurants of New York: 1979-1980 Edition. New York: Random House, 1979: 163-164.

Leone, Gene. Leone’s Italian Cookbook. Forward by Dwight D. Eisenhower. New York: Harper & Row, 1967.

“Both On and Off the Gay White Way, Where Showfolks Like to Dine and Play.” Broadway Beat, 1959. Republished in “Where to Eat in Midtown, Circa 1959.” Lost City. Blog, January 15, 2009.

Paddleford, Clementine. “$250,000 Art Display: Leone’s, Where the Dining is Opulent.” New York Herald Tribune, January 18, 1958: 9.

McGraw, Blanche S. The Real McGraw. New York: David McKay Company, 1953: 252.

Anderson, Harriet Jean. “Crowds Line Up at Leone’s for Italian Dinners.” New York Herald Tribune, January 19, 1952: 11 (illustrated).

“Mother Leone Dies; Operator of Restaurant.” New York Herald Tribune, May 5, 1944: 14A.

Notable Guests:

Ethel Barrymore (Actress)

Earl “Red” Blaik (American Football Player & Coach)

Enrico Caruso (Opera Singer)

George M. Cohan (Entertainer, Playwright, & Composer)

Frank Craven (Actor)

Marlene Dietrich (Actress & Singer)

Dwight D. Eisenhower (34th President of the United States)

W. C. Fields (Comedian)

Jay C. Flippen (Actor)

Bernard Gimbel (Businessman)

William S. Hart (Actor)

Victor Herbert (Composer)

Herbert Hoover (31st President of the United States)

Roy Howard (Newspaperman)

Walter Huston (Actor)

Ed Koch (Former Mayor of New York City)

Liberace (Pianist)

Douglas MacArthur (United States Army General)

Rocky Marciano (Professional Boxer)

Mary Margaret McBride (Radio Host & Journalist)

John McGraw (Baseball Player)

Joe Namath (American Football Player)

Rachael Ray (Chef): “In the dining room of our house upstate hangs a framed menu from Mamma Leone’s restaurant in New York City, dating back some forty years ago, to a time when Mamma was alive and hosting her guests and I was just a little girl… Every time I look at it, I think of my childhood Christmases and some of the happiest days of my life.” (1)

Will Rogers (Actor): “It was one night in November, 1924… The lovable Will Rogers ambled in for his dinner… He was playing in the Ziegfield Follies at the New Amsterdam… This night his choice was roast spring chicken… It was a neighborly ritual with him to visit Mamma Leone in the kitchen before he left… ‘I always feel at home back here,’ he’d smile… ‘Mother, I just want to tell you how ‘specially swell my supper was tonight… I wouldn’t want ’em to hear about it down home… but, shucks, my own mother couldn’t do better.'” (2)

Eleanor Roosevelt (Former First Lady of the United States)

Babe Ruth (Baseball Player)

Ming Smith (Photographer): Shares a photo taken at a 1983 celebration with her family at Mamma Leone’s in W Magazine.

Ed Sullivan (Television Host)

Harry S. Truman (33rd President of the United States)

Gene Tunney (Professional Boxer)

Rudy Vallée (Singer)

Monrad Wallgren (Governor & Senator of Washington State)

Notes:

The restaurant got its start when opera singer Enrico Caruso convinced Luisa Leone to operate a twenty-seat dining service in her living room at fifty cents a person. Barely more than a block away from the “Old” Metropolitan Opera House, Leone’s living room overflowed on opening night, with Caruso’s invited guests seated on wine crates. (3) Leone’s husband Gerome ran a wine store downstairs and kept the restaurant going on other nights by inviting customers to dinner. (4)

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The menu on opening night comprised “Antipasto Supremo; Minestrone; Spaghetti or Ravioli con Ragout di Manzo; Roast Chicken or Scaloppine Piccata; Green Salad; Cheese; Spumoni, Fat’ in Casa; Caffè Nero.” (5)

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At its height, and after expanding into the President Theatre next door, Mamma Leone’s was the largest Italian restaurant in New York with 11 dining rooms and 1,250 seats, serving approximately 700,000 meals a year.

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In 1976, with the completion of Boston’s John Hancock Tower, Restaurant Associates opened a 750-seat branch of Mamma Leone’s in the ground floor of the building’s parking garage. The restaurant closed within a year and sued the owners of the Tower – “best known for its former tendency to pop off windowpanes from great heights, like a dinosaur shedding scales toward the normal-sized animals grazing below” (6) – for scaring away falling-window-wary customers.

Related Restaurants:

Forum of the Twelve Caesars (Restaurant Associates)

The Hawaiian Room (Restaurant Associates)

Menu:

Mamma Leone’s Famous Carnevale Dinner, 1983 (New York Public Library)

Luncheon, 1979 (Culinary Institute of America)

Mamma Leone’s Famous Dinner, 1962 (New York Public Library)

(1) Ray, 2019.
(2) Mamma Leone’s menu, 1962.
(3) Martin, 1987.
(4) New York Herald Tribune, 1944.
(5) Leone, 1967.
(6) Trillin, Calvin. “US Journal: Boston.” New Yorker, December 13, 1976: 143.

Cover photo: “Mamma Leone’s.” Menu. (1962). Buttolph Collection of Menus. Rare Book Division, New York Public Library (Digital Collections). Accessed January 27, 2021.