Felidia

“Tutti a tavola a mangiare!”

Felidia
April 15, 1981–2021
Italian

Ownership:

Lidia Bastianich with Joe Bastianich & Tanya Bastianich Manuali (1998–2021)

Lidia & Felice “Felix” Bastianich (1981–1998)

Executive Chef:

Fortunato Nicotra (1996–2021)

Lidia Bastianich (1981–1996)
[Additionally noted in publications: Marinko Kucelin (c. 1981); Nino Palmieri (c. 1982).]

Location:

243 East 58th Street

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. [Felidia features prominently in the third episode, “The Path to Television: Felidia and Julia Child.”]

Literature:

Adam Mitzner, Losing Faith (2015): Main character’s favorite restaurant and the scene of a date in Chapter 23.

Publications:

Articles:

Fortney, Luke. “Felidia, the Midtown Italian Restaurant that Launched the Bastianich Empire.” Eater New York, October 14, 2021.

“How to Make Lidia Bastianich’s Whole Roast Branzino for Dinner Tonight.” CBC Life, September 30, 2020. [Featuring an excerpted recipe from Bastianich, Lidia Matticchio. Felidia: Recipes from My Flagship Restaurant, 2019.]

Bruni, Frank. “Comfort, Between Regal and Rustic.” New York Times, August 30, 2006: F8.

Reichl, Ruth. “Restaurants: Felidia.” New York Times, November 24, 1995: C28.

Gordon, Meryl. “The Egos that Ate Manhattan: A Battlefield Report on the Great Italian Restaurant Wars of 1994.” New York 27,18 (May 2, 1994): 60-66 (illustrated). [Also includes a section entitled “Gael Greene’s 12 Favorites,” in which Greene lists Felidia, p. 63.]

Miller, Bryan. “Restaurants: Felidia.” New York Times, November 20, 1992: C20.

Greene, Gael. “That’s Italian (Part One): Felidia.” New York 18,4 (January 28, 1985): 38.

Kafka, Barbara. “The Omnivore.” Vogue 174,3 (March 1984): 338 (illustrated), 341.

Richman, Phyllis. “The Italian Enclave: N.Y. Restaurants Find Success Through Competition.” Washington Post, January 25, 1984: E1, E3.

Jacobs, Jay. Gourmet, 1984.

“The Evolution of the Martini.” The Connoisseur: An Illustrated Magazine for Collectors, November 1983.

Villas, James. “From Down Home to Haute Cuisine: T&C’s Guide to Great New York Eating.” Town & Country 136, 5029 (September 1982): 163.

Feretti, Fred. “Some New York Chefs Have Their Say.” New York Times, September 30, 1981: C1.

Claybeard, Julian. “WWD at Table: Felidia.” Women’s Wear Daily 142,121 (June 24, 1981): 32.

Books:

Bastianich, Lidia Matticchio. Felidia: Recipes from My Flagship Restaurant. New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2019. [Features images of the restaurant under construction.]

Bastianich, Lidia Matticchio. My American Dream: A Life of Love, Family, and Food. New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2018.

Gay, Kathlyn. Celebrity Chefs: Anne Burrell. New York: Enslow, 2016: 23. [Brief description of Burrell’s role as sous chef at Felidia.]

Scicolone, Michele. The Italian Vegetable Cookbook: 200 Favorite Recipes for Antipasti, Soups, Pasta, Main Dishes, and Desserts. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014: [Features a recipe for ‘Black and White Bean Spread’ based on a similar dish served at Felidia.]

Brown, Ellen. Italian Slow Cooking. Kennebunkport, Maine: Appleseed Press, 2013: 71. [Features a recipe for ‘Sage and Chestnut Soup’ based on a soup served at Felidia.]

Cinotto, Simone, “Bastianich, Lidia,” in Andrew Smith, ed., The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Vol. 1 (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013: 127.

Molinari, Maurizio. The Italians of New York. Washington, DC: New Academia, 2012. [Translated from Gli Italiani di New York, Rome: Gius. Laterza & Figli, 2011.]

Reistad-Long, Sara, and Jean Tang. The Big New York Sandwich Book: 99 Delicious Creations from the City’s Greatest Restaurants and Chefs. Philadelphia: Running Press, 2011. [Features a recipe for a tomato and basil sandwich from Felidia.]

O’Neil, Carolyn, and Densie Webb. The Dish: On Eating Healthy and Being Fabulous! New York: Atria Books, 2010: 253. [Features a recipe for ‘You’ll-Think-You’re-in-Tuscany Braised Artichokes’ from Felidia.]

Stern, Robert A. M., David Fishman, and Jacob Tilove. New York 2000: Architecture and Urbanism Between the Bicentennial and the Millennium. New York: Monacelli Press, 2006: 1078.

Thomas, Pamela. Romantic Days and Nights in New York City: Intimate Escapes in the Big Apple. Guilford, Connecticut: Globe Pequot Press, 2000: 119.

Britchky, Seymour. The Restaurants of New York: 1985 Edition. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984: 150. [Britchky notably comments, “Felidia’s principal idiocy is its printed menu, which is composed exclusively in Italian.”]

Notable Guests:

Alan Alda (Actor)

Maria Bartiromo (Journalist)

James Beard (Chef)

Roberto Benigni (Actor & Comedian)

Massimo Bottura (Chef & Restaurateur)

Daniel Boulud (Chef & Restaurateur)

Carole Bouquet (Actress)

Pierce Brosnan (Actor)

Barbara Bush (Former First Lady of the United States)

Mario Cantone (Comedian)

Julia Child (Chef)

Antonella Clerici (Television Host & Journalist)

Glenn Close (Actress)

Phil Collins (Singer)

Sean Connery (Actor)

Maria Grazia Cucinotta (Actress)

Pino Cuttaia (Chef)

Mike D’Antoni (Basketball Player & Coach)

Robert De Niro (Actor & Film Producer)

Danny DeVito (Actor & Comedian)

Leonardo DiCaprio (Actor)

Jodie Foster (Actress & Filmmaker)

Cesare Giaccone (Chef)

Kathie Lee Gifford (Talk Show Host)

Mick Jagger (Singer)

Billy Joel (Singer)

Michael Jordan (Basketball Player)

Thomas Keller (Chef & Restaurateur)

Sophia Loren (Actress)

Gualtiero Marchesi (Chef)

Steve Martin (Actor & Comedian)

Paul Newman (Actor & Film Director)

Mike Piazza (Baseball Player)

Robert Redford (Actor)

Isabella Rossellini (Actress & Model)

Mark Rylance (Actor & Playwright)

Carlos Santana (Guitarist)

James Spader (Actor)

Sir Howard Stringer (Businessman): Celebrated the signing of a new contract with Sony in 2008 with a dinner upstairs at Felidia. (1)

Jovan Trboyevic (Chef & Restaurateur): Described a meal at Felidia as the best Italian meal he’d had in New York in years. (2)

Il Volo (Gianluca Ginoble, Piero Barone, & Ignazio Boschetto; Singers)

Vanessa Williams (Actress)

Notes:

Lidia Matticchio and future husband Felice Bastianich both came to America from Istria in communist Yugoslavia (once part of Italy, now part of Croatia), Lidia at 12, Felix at 18. (3) Showcasing the cuisine of their native Istria, Lidia and Felice’s Felidia is credited with introducing regional Italian cuisine to Americans used to “Italian-American red sauce cooking.” (4)

Felidia opened on the site of former Spanish restaurant San Martin. (5)

The mahogany panels in the restaurant were salvaged from a Hudson River mansion. (6)

Lidia’s mother personally advertised for the restaurant, standing on the corner of 3rd Avenue and 58th Street, handing out flyers and directing passers-by to the restaurant. (7)

The restaurant won the James Beard Award for Best Chef: New York City in 1992-1994 and 1996-1999, Outstanding Chef in 2002, and Outstanding Restaurant in 2004.

Regarding Felidia’s role in the evolution of the martini: “Sam Peros was a fixture at the bar, and his convex martini—a martini poured to the brim of the glass so that the drink appears higher in the center than on the sides—became famous and earned Felidia a feature article in Cosmopolitan.” (8)

This video, via Circular Space, provides a one minute walk through the restaurant in 2018.

Felidia features in John Donohoe’s “All the Restaurants” project, in which he aims to draw the facades of “all the restaurants” in New York in 20-minute ink sketches. Limited edition Giclee prints are available of the Felidia sketch.

The restaurant space was taken over by Anto Korean Steakhouse in 2023, though as of April 2024 the steakhouse appears to have closed (despite—or perhaps as the result of—the owner’s creation of an exclusive private poker club upstairs in February 2024).

Menu:

Variety of menus, c.2020-2021 (Restaurant Guru)

Dessert Menu, c. 1991-1996 (New York Public Library)

Culinary Historians of New York Dinner, May 5, 1988 (New York Public Library)

(1) Smith, Liz. “Streep Helps ‘Mamma’ Sink ‘Titanic.’” Variety, November 3, 2008.
(2) Villas, 1982.
(3) Bastianich, 2019.
(4) Fortney, 2021.
(5) Bastianich, 2019.
(6) ibid.
(7) ibid.
(8) ibid.

Cover photo: Felidia. OpenTable. Uploaded October 8, 2016. Accessed November 11, 2023.

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