If you’ve ever eaten at Luce, you know that one of owner and executive chef Joe Buonincontri’s specialties is his southern Italian seafood (like the insalata di mare, above, inspired by his Neapolitan roots).

For our next wine dinner, Joe will be featuring some of his favorite frutti di mare (fruits of the sea) with wine pairings selected especially for the event.

And, of course, Italian wine expert and wine writer Jeremy Parzen, Ph.D. joins us as well.

The Art of Pairing Wine with Seafood
with a special menu created by
executive chef Joe Buonincontri
and Italian wine expert
Jeremy Parzen, Ph.D.
Saturday, June 16
5:00 p.m.
$50 per person

PLEASE CALL (210) 561-9700 TO RESERVE!

CLICK HERE FOR OUR NEWLY UPDATED MENUS PAGE!

This year, celebrate Mother’s Day (Sunday May 13) with our Special Mother’s Day Menu or our Ala Carte Mother’s Day Menu.

Scenes from an Italian-American dinner with Mrs. Buonincontri (Joe’s mom).

Please note that Luce will be open on Mother’s Day from 12 noon to 4 p.m.

It’s difficult to overestimate the impact that Lidia Bastianich has had on gastronomic culture in the United States and on the renaissance of Italian cuisine throughout the world.

She is to our generation what Julia Child and James Beard were to my mother’s generation (my mother was a James Beard devotee, for the record).

And to her credit, she has never wavered from her devotion to regional Italian cuisine. Long before “peasant” food (what an awful and despicable term!), “rustico” cuisine, or even “Northern vs. Southern” Italian cooking ever appeared in the American gastronomic lexicon, Lidia championed regional culinary traditions from Italy, first in the Croatian neighborhood in Queens where she and her family got their start and then later at Felidia in Manhattan (a restaurant where I used to regularly take my mother during the decade that I lived in New York).

In 1998 — the year that Babbo opened and the year that “regional Italian” became bywords of food culture in America — Lidia launched her first cooking show, “Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen” on PBS. To this day, Tracie P’s Saturday morning ritual is not complete without watching a DVR’d episode.

I asked Lidia to share her thoughts about the renaissance of Italian gastronomy and her role in Italy’s culinary conquest of the U.S. palate and hedonist imagination.

Her response, I must say, surprised and inspired me.

“When you look at the great beauty of Italy,” she said. “It’s easy to understand why the Italians are such creative people. From the [historic] Renaissance to this day, Italians have made so many contributions to the arts and culture. It was only natural that Italian cooking would do the same.”

“I don’t know if I’ve been an architect of the Italian culinary renaissance as you put it,” she added graciously. “But when I am surrounded by this beauty and the goodness of the ingredients I find here, I know that I am inspired by them.”

Lidia also told me that she has been asked to be the madrina (i.e., the grand marshal) of the first-ever “Biennial of Cuisine” in Venice. I wasn’t surprised by this news: her celebrity and her contributions to the dissemination of Italian cuisine and culture in the U.S. is not lost on Italians — at least, gauging from my Italian colleagues and counterparts.

“But it’s really Joe [Bastianich, her son] who’s become a celebrity here,” she told me. His appearances on “MasterChef Italia” (the number-one rated show in Italy this year, I was told by a journalist at our luncheon) have made him a megawatt star there.

“Just the other day, we were stopped by school children in Venice who wanted his autograph,” she said.

Whether or not her celebrity is or will be eclipsed by her son’s is irrelevant, really. After all, if it weren’t for Lidia, there would be no Joe, would there?

As a proud new father myself, I couldn’t resist the urge to share a photo of Georgia P with Lidia.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” she said, “but she’s a prettier version of you.”

Words only a mother could utter.

Di mamme, ce n’è una sola… You only have one mother…

Here’s a link to some photos of what Lidia made us for lunch that day.

—Jeremy Parzen

Above: In his films, Martin Scorsese depicted the central role that the mother plays in family life in the Italian-American household. That’s his mother, Catherine Scorsese, in his film Good Fellas. She appeared in a number of his movies, nearly always playing herself.

“You only have one mother,” goes the saying in Italian.

Mothers hold a special place in the heart of Italians: in Italy, motherhood is cherished as in no other country on earth.

And of course, ask any Italian son or daughter and he or she will tell you that mamma’s sauce is the best…

Indeed, a lot of Luce owner and executive chef Joe Buonicontri’s cooking is inspired by dishes his mother taught him when he was growing up in Brooklyn.

This year, celebrate Mother’s Day (Sunday May 13) with our Special Mother’s Day Menu or our Ala Carte Mother’s Day Menu.

Please note that Luce will be open on Mother’s Day from 12 noon to 4 p.m.

Click image to watch video.

Thanks again, Mark, for this EXCELLENT video and interview!

We love your blog 1337 Wine.

Click here for the video.

Mille grazie to Defining Delicious, SA Food Nazi, O My Pudding, Geekette Bits, 1337 Wine, Vinously Speaking, and Do Bianchi!

If you haven’t had a chance to attend one of our family-style Italian wine dinners at Luce, you don’t know what you’re missing!

The series returns Saturday, May 5.

The Wines of Southern Italy
with a special menu created by
executive chef Joe Buonincontri
and Italian wine expert
Jeremy Parzen, Ph.D.
Saturday, May 5
5:00 p.m.
$50 per person

PLEASE CALL (210) 561-9700 TO RESERVE!

limited availability

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