I owe an enormous amount of gratitude to my original partner in crime, Alberto Avalle, my dearest collaborator in all things il Buco, along with Roberto Paris, wine director extraordinaire, proverbial right hand, and padrino to my son, Joaquin, the light of my life. To my Fratelli Umbri and partners in Alimentari and Vita, Antonello and Lorenzo Radi, and to my own incredible family whose support buoys me daily. A special thanks to my dear nephew Danny Rubin, who has become a true member of the il Buco clan from prep cook to Alimentari director to leading the charge in Ibiza.
To all the chefs who have graced these spaces with their enormous talent and collaboration over the years: Thierry Amezcua, Jody Williams, Filippo Paoloni, Sara Jenkins, Amanda Freitag, Sandro Fioriti, Gary Robins, Ed DeWitt, Jeremy Griffiths, Anne Burrell, Ignacio Mattos, Christopher Lee, Justin Smillie (welcome back!!), Josh DeChellis, Joel Hough, Victoria Blamey, Roger Martinez, Garrison Price, and Preston Madson.
To the extraordinary Il Buco and Alimentari teams, with a special shout-out to il Buco kitchen veterans Harding, Tiki, Ricardo, and the Flores boys: Bernardo, Marcello, Angel, Pancho, Gabino, Isaias. To our amazing staff of servers, bartenders, and busboys and runners, to a rock star management team led by Marc Ellert-Beck and Natasha Riger. To David, Sheena, Lauren, Maya, Max, Jeff and Sherry, Boris and Alan, to my Vita girls Caroline and Giada, Fabio, Erica, Scott, and Rubyrose Hill; to Luca, Xavi, and the Bottega Ibiza team, and to Ari, Eric and Sharone, Cyril and Valerie, our sun-kissed Balearic coconspirators. To Anne Koczka, Tasha Cain, and Sofia Frias, who have cared for all the details over all the years, and to the original Banda del Buco cast, Giorgio Cappelletti and Carlo Pulixi. To Joe’s loving family and his brother, Michael Rosato, whose artistic flourish has enhanced both restaurants since the beginning; and to Warren Muller, who brought in the light with his fantastical chandeliers.
To Alice Waters, Francis Mallmann, and Peter Kaminsky, whose friendships have inspired me. To Joshua David Stein, whose humor, poetry, and perception brought this story to life on the page; to Andrea Gentl and Marty Hyers, whose extraordinary photographs enhanced it, with the graceful assistance of Frankie Crichton. To Michael Grimm, Giada Paoloni, Thibault Jeansen, and Noe DeWitt for the beautiful archive of images over the years. To our dedicated stylists, Ayesha Patel and Susie Theodorou, whose attention to the details made all the difference, and to Su Barber, whose inimitable design tied together all the threads of this twenty-five-year journey. Working with you has been a dream. And thank you, Maya Horton, for the added flourish of your elegant illustrations. To our recipe tester, Sarah Karnasiewicz, and to my agent, Sarah Smith, at the David Black Agency. To our editor, Elinor Hutton, who jumped in just in time to shepherd this book to completion with her sheer grit, and the enormous support of Lynne Yeamans and the team at Harper Design, whose tremendous faith and dedication made this book possible.
To my dear friend and publicist, Jesse Gerstein and style-savvy Elizabeth Blitzer. To David and Monica Zwirner, who believed in the Alimentari dream, and to our first-class landlord, Anthony Lauto, who helped build it with the support of Luca Boniciolli, Grayling Design, and Howard Haimes. And to Steve Breskin and Jerry Atkins, who got the whole thing started on Bond Street in 1994 when they rented a little artist’s showroom to a crazy Italian and his American girl.
To all the producers, artisans, distributors, and importers whose labor and craft inspire me constantly and allow me to deliver the best I can provide, day after day, and whose friendships are indelible. And to all my delicious guests and friends in the biz and outside of it who participated by sharing in these stories over the course of the journey and continue to share their creativity in this unprecedented moment in our industry and in our world.
This book belongs to all of you . . . with love.
—Donna Lennard
First, I’d like to thank Donna Lennard for letting me be part of this amazing journey. A journey it truly was. Then I’d like to thank my compatriots on the trip: Ocelot, Polar Bear, Gecko, Golden Retriever, and most importantly, Vampire Bat. During those two weeks in the summer of 2019, in the back of a van, amongst the olive trees of Umbria, on a street in Catania, on a beach in Ibiza, I felt all the love there is to feel in the world, and I won’t forget that feeling.
Stateside, Harding Aldonzar was a beacon and a blessing of Bond Street. A block north, future Booker Prize winner Adjua Greaves, my favorite dungeon master Aubrey Jowers, the brother-in-mustache Kelvin Gonzalez, and Super-trooper Sherry Zuckerman were my guardian angels at Alimentari, always ready with an oat milk cortado and an egg sandwich to sustain me. Danny Rubin, thank you for being a mensch. Thank you to the Madson siblings too—Preston and Lauren—you two are both insane people in the best way. Sarah Karnasiewicz made sure these recipes actually worked, so we should all thank her. Dana Bowen and Pete Ferencevych at the Dynamite Shop kept me caffeinated and from being too lonely during the writing process. Thank you to Su Barber for making the book beautiful; Elinor Hutton, editorial pinch hitter, for bringing the book home; and to Rica Allannic and Sarah Smith of David Black Agency, for making sure it found one.
—Joshua David Stein