When the Wall Street elite needed a place to regroup after the devastation of 9/11, they didn’t head to a private hotel suite or some nondescript office building. Instead, many gathered at a restaurant owned by a family of Italian immigrants.
San Pietro is a cozy, elegant eatery on East 54th Street just off Madison Avenue that has long served as a sort of demilitarized zone for bankers and CEOs. It’s a place where brutal competitors break bread, do deals and find common ground as they did following the terrorist attacks.
Much has happened in Gotham over the past quarter century: A succession of mayors, a rebuilding of downtown Manhattan, a financial crisis, Covid lockdowns and Donald Trump, a local real estate developer moving into the White House.
One thing that hasn’t changed is San Pietro. On any given lunch hour, you can see Wall Street honchos like BlackRock’s Larry Fink dining with John Mack, the legendary former CEO of Morgan Stanley. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon still dines there as does Bank of America’s CEO Brian Moynihan.
And don’t be surprised if you find members of the Trump family there, including the president himself, sharing a table along with the city’s top real estate titans.
Run by a duo of brothers from southern Italy, Gerardo and Cosimo Bruno, the place still serves as a testament to their tenacity, creativity and the amazing food that comes out of their kitchen.
“We’ve been here for more than 30 years,” Gerardo Bruno tells me. “It hasn’t been easy but thank God for our loyal customers. They stayed with us through it all.”
What keeps customers coming back is the food. It’s not cheap, mind you (this is Midtown Manhattan, after all). But Bruno’s menu still features the best of the healthy Mediterranean diet, the food they grew up eating in a blue zone of the Italian boot where people live to become centenarians.
Everything from fresh Branzino to homemade pastas, soups, and rabbit – one of my favorites. You can get a good steak and a real eggplant parmesan, not that gloopy fried dish covered with breadcrumbs, sauce and mountains of cheese.
“Our mother taught us how to cook and how to make it both healthy and delicious,” Gerardo tells me.
Still, business hasn’t been easy, particularly of late. Many customers have left Midtown, with firms like BlackRock relocating to Hudson Yards on the West Side. The financial crisis squeezed expenses accounts. Covid created a financial crisis for Manhattan eateries in particular given the work-from-home mandates.
Gerardo and Cosimo needed a reboot; they closed for nearly a year to update the decor and the ambiance, reopening earlier this spring. The place has a more modern vibe and the food remains top notch, but they’ve been scrambling to remind folks that they’re back in business.
The word is now spreading, Gerardo tells me, with his old customers slowly filling his seats during lunch and dinner. It helps that the brothers have expanded the bar that now attracts a sophisticated happy-hour crowd.
Gerardo, I should point out, is maybe the best maitre d’ in the city, so even if you’re not a regular you will feel welcome. Cosimo does the cooking, including some of the best Italian desserts around (try the homemade Sfogliatella). I should also point out that good food runs in the family; their other brother, Giuseppe, is the legendary chef and owner of Sistina and Caravaggio on the Upper East Side.
And for all the money that walks in the door, it’s not a pretentious scene. I brought my childhood pals there one night – working-class guys who love great homemade Italian food. Cosimo whipped up some old style tripe or trippa — the cooked lining of a cow’s stomach simmered in tomato sauce — that is a southern Italian delicacy.
My mom couldn’t have made it better.
