Openings

‘Dark Prince of Italian Fine Dining’ Pino Luongo Plans a New One

Yesterday it was Nino Selimaj opening two new places (we’re now told Scarpina’s opening has been delayed till November 4 owing to an unexpected construction setback with the bar, but in the meantime, here’s the menu for the already-open Casabe Bistro Latino). Today, there’s word that another prolific Italian restaurateur, Pino Luongo (the boss that Anthony Bourdain wrote about in Kitchen Confidential and later called “the Dark Prince of Italian Fine Dining”) will open a new place at 420 East 59th Street.

In his memoir, Luongo played up the idea that after a lifetime of ill-fated branding and empire building, he was perfectly happy hiding out in the kitchen of Centolire, but last year he told us he was casually scouting locations for a new project. Maybe he was moved to action by all the fanfare over Bill’s Bar & Burger Rockefeller Center, in the space that once housed his disastrous Tuscan Square? Anyway, Diner’s Journal says Morso will be a throwback to his old place Le Madri and will open next spring.

The Latest from Pino Luongo [Diner’s Journal/NYT]

‘Dark Prince of Italian Fine Dining’ Pino Luongo Plans a New One