Farewell to Barbetta

You know, there come along those once in a lifetime restaurants. For me, some of them are Gualtiero Marchesi in Milan, Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Barbetta in Manhattan. All marching to the beat of their own different drummer, but noteworthy and unforgettable. Gualtiero Marchesi is long gone (but not forgotten). Chez Panisse still has a warm hearth and a welcome mat. But Barbetta lost their beating heart. Laura Maioglio passed away January 17 of this year. And on Feb 27, the restaurant will close. I am heartbroken.

It was fourteen years ago that I first walked into Barbetta. It was like walking back into a time when New York was so full of hope and promise. Barbetta opened up in 1906, and it retained a timelessness from that era that when one walked into it felt like walking into a grand restaurant in Piemonte many, many moons ago. Ristorante Belvedere in La Morra comes to mind.

These were places unbreeched by cell phones and modern-day befuddlements. A place where you could hear your table mates without having to shout over ear crushing music. Oh, there was music, it was just playing at a level that created ambience not chaos.

There were some who said the room resembled the dining hall at a senior citizens retirement home. The light was sufficient to see the food. The chairs were comfortable, not some 20-minute bistro chairs that encouraged a "turn the tables" mentality. The food was unrushed and definitely from another era. It was time travel in the best sense of the word – good food, great wine list, reasonable prices, professional service. None of that "how is the food tasting?" required 21st century waitperson banter. In other words, it was dated, outmoded and out of synch with today's world.

It was a fantastic experience.

When you would walk through the door and be greeted by someone with a fully formed brain, who understood your desire to be treated like a guest, not like a pawn, to the moment you sat down in the room, or weather permitting, in the patio, there was an expectation of great things to come.

Dining in Piemonte over the last 40 or so years, I've seen a lot of changes. From the little mom and pop trattorias to the grand dining rooms, from Nouvelle Cuisine to molecular gastronomy. Great experiences, and great wines. I've been to Burgundy a handful of times during my working days and always had wonderful wines and meals there. Piemonte was and is, to me, right up there with Burgundy. Maybe for me, Piemonte has an edge, because of the language. And for the most part, the accessible nature of the wines. Yes, there are elite offerings in the Langhe, you can spend wicked money like you can in Burgundy. But there will always be a Dolcetto, a Freisa, a Grignolino, a Ghemme and the likes of others that will make you feel like you haven't been consigned to the back of the bus.

At Barbetta, wine was important. All of the still wines by the glass come from Piedmont. Over the years, I reckon the owners had quite the time to provide the great but unknown wines from the Langhe. Laura Maioglio said it herself, "It's hard to believe now, with Italian wines having gained so much in prestige and popularity, that in 1962 only one Barolo was imported into America and that Barbaresco and Gattinara were not imported at all! For many years, we imported the only Barbaresco and Gattinara to be found in this country."

We can only imagine the Sisyphean task that must have been 60 years ago.

Ms. Maioglio was singular in her desire to keep her father's restaurant going. In 1962, he didn't envision his daughter running the place, arranging to sell it. She hired a lawyer, stopped the sale and envisioned a life ahead as a restaurateur. It was by all accounts one of the few truly elegant restaurants in New York, an ambassador of all things Italian, especially from Piemonte. 

Barbetta introduced American diners to white truffles, bagna cauda, fonduta and one of my favorites, vitello tonnato. Who had their own truffle hunters back home in those days? Do you know how difficult it was to get fresh white truffles in season, from Italy to America, forty years ago? I do, because I did it. It was excruciatingly complicated. Barbetta (in 1966!) was the only restaurant outside Italy in the Historical Restaurants registry. Rumor has it, in her father's day, it was Caruso's favorite restaurant in America.* It's not hard to imagine that.

Like all things in time, there is a cycle. Can we imagine a time when restaurants like this will no longer exist? That time is probably closer than we think. The economics of sustaining an operation like that just don't exist anymore. And the trends are pushing these places into the past. Timelessness is unfashionable in 2026. That's the bottom line.

So, if anyone reading this is in or near New York City between now and February 27 of this year, and you want one more rendez-vous with that small plate of tajarin or that zabaglione you didn't know originated in Piemonte, giddy-up. Oh, and until then, at Barbetta, all bottles listed at $200 and above are offered at half their listed price, until they shut their doors end of the month. I will miss this last chance, but I will never forget how Barbetta honored the traditions of their land and shared it with the world for 120 years. 

 

Thank you, Barbetta and Famiglia Maioglio. 

 

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 * epilogue...

University of Texas at Arlington Libraries, Special Collections

...Back in old North Texas, when my mother's family did their deals here, one of my uncles was the president of a small oil company. He and his brother, my maternal grandfather, were named after historical conquerors, Alexander and Attila. My grand uncle Alexander (Alessandro) one night after the opera brought home a famous tenor to dine with the family, so the story goes. That singer was Caruso. Could you imagine Dallas (and Ft. Worth, for that is where he performed in 1920) over 100 years ago? Caruso singing in a "barn?" Fortunately, the barn had good acoustics. The story goes, after the concert Caruso was famished and my uncle drove them all to the family home in nearby Dallas for a home cooked meal. Caruso passed away several months later. My grand uncle didn't quite make it to his 46th birthday, when he was found in 1924 in a ditch, murdered.

 

 

 

© written by Alfonso Cevola limited rights reserved On the Wine Trail in Italy 

(Photos of Barbetta from their FB page)

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