Lidia Bastianich
Encyclopedia
Lidia Matticchio Bastianich (born Lidia Motika on February 21, 1947 in Pula
, present-day Croatia
) is an American
chef, author, and restaurateur.
Specializing in Italian cuisine
, she has been a regular contributor to public television cooking show
lineups since 1998. In 2007, she launched her third TV series, Lidia's Italy. She also owns several Italian restaurants in the U.S. in partnership with her daughter Tanya Bastianich Manuali and her son, Joe Bastianich: including Felidia (founded with her ex-husband, Felice), Del Posto, Esca, and Becco in Manhattan
; Lidia's Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
; and Lidia's Kansas City in Kansas City, Missouri
.
, then newly ceded to Yugoslavia, now part of Croatia
. Living nine years under Tito's Communist regime, her father, Vittorio, in 1956 sent his wife and their two children to visit relatives in Trieste
, Italy
, while he remained in Istria to comply with the government's mandate that one member of a family remain in Yugoslavia to ensure that the rest would return. Hours later, Vittorio himself left Yugoslavia under cover of darkness and crossed the border into Italy.
The Motika family reunited in Trieste, Italy
, joining other families who had claimed political asylum from Communist Yugoslavia starting in 1947, many of whom remained in refugee camps throughout Italy for years. For the Motika family, the camp was one that had been an abandoned rice factory in Trieste that had been converted to a Nazi concentration camp during World War II and partially destroyed towards the end of the war, the Risiera di San Sabba
. According to Lidia in a PBS documentary, although a wealthy Triestian family hired Lidia's mother as a cook–housekeeper and her father as a limousine driver, they remained residents of the refugee camp. Two years later, their displaced persons application was granted to emigrate to the U.S. In 1958, unlike the earlier groups of World War II refugees whose journeyed to their adoptive homelands by "liberty ships" that took at least seven days arrive at their destination in North and South America, the Motika family had the good fortune to reach New York City by airplane.
Bastianich gives credit to the family's new roots in America to their sponsor, Catholic Charities
:
After a few weeks, the family moved to North Bergen, New Jersey
, near the Chevrolet
factory where Lidia's father began working as a mechanic. Later, they moved to Astoria, Queens
, where they had family friends and relatives living in a large enclave of fellow Istrian immigrants. Lidia started working part time when she was 14 (the legal age for a work permit), during which time she briefly worked at the Astoria bakery owned by Christopher Walken
's father. After graduating from high school, she began to work full-time in local Italian restaurants. Meanwhile, at her sweet sixteen birthday party, she was introduced to her future husband, Felice "Felix" Bastianich, a fellow Istrian immigrant and restaurant worker from Labin (Albona), Istria. The couple married in 1966 and gave birth to their son, Joseph, in 1968.
section of Queens, with Lidia as its hostess. They created their restaurant's menu by copying recipes from the most popular and successful Italian restaurants of the day, and they hired the best Italian-American chef that they could find. After a brief break to deliver her second child, Tanya Bastianich Manuali, in 1972, Lidia began training as the assistant chef at Buonavia, gradually learning enough to cook popular Italian dishes on her own, after which the couple began adding traditional Istrian dishes to their menu.
The success of Buonavia led to the opening of a second restaurant in Queens, Villa Secondo. It was here that Lidia both gained the attention of local food critics and started to give live cooking demonstrations, a prelude to her future career as a TV cooking show hostess.
In 1981, Lidia's father died, and so the family sold their two Queens restaurants and purchased a small Manhattan brownstone containing a pre-existing restaurant on the East Side of Manhattan near the 59th Street Bridge to Queens, which they converted into what would eventually become their flagship restaurant, Felidia (a contraction of "Felice" and "Lidia"). After liquidating nearly every asset they had to cover $750,000 worth of renovations, Felidia finally opened to near-universal acclaim from their loyal following of food critics, including The New York Times which gave them three stars.
In 1993, Julia Child
invited Lidia to tape an episode of her PBS series Julia Child: Cooking With Master Chefs, which featured acclaimed chefs from around the U.S., preparing dishes in their own home kitchens. The guest appearance gave Lidia confidence and determination to expand the Bastianich family's own commercial interests. After many disagreements about the direction their entrepeneurial and personal lives had taken — most notably, the pace of the expansion and character of their business — Lidia and Felice divorced in 1997. Lidia continued expanding her business empire while Felice remarried and transferred his shares in the business to their two children. He passed away on December 12, 2010.
By the late 1990s, Lidia's restaurants had evolved into a true family-owned and operated enterprise: Erminia Motika, her mother, maintained the large garden behind the family home, from which her daughter Lidia chose the ingredients to use in recipe development; son Joe was the chief sommelier
of the restaurant group, in addition to branching out into his own restaurant line with friend and famed Italian chef Mario Batali
; daughter Tanya Bastianich Manuali used her Ph.D in Italian art history as the backdrop for a travel-agency partnership with her mother called Lidia's Esperienze Italiane, where Tanya and her friend Shelly Burgess Nicotra (the wife of Felidia's Executive Chef Fortunato Nicotra since 1996) conducted tours throughout Italy to view the historic architecture and sample genuine Italian cuisine; Tanya's husband, attorney Corrado Manuali, became the restaurant group's chief legal counsel.
The James Beard Foundation Award
named Lidia Bastianich the Best Chef: New York City for 1999. In 2000, Ms. Bastianich participated as a celebrity judge on MasterChef USA, an adaptation of the BBC
MasterChef (UK TV series). Her son, Joseph Bastianich
, would later go on to star as a celebrity judge on the Gordon Ramsay
version of MasterChef.
The family's business empire includes vineyards in Italy, olive groves in Istria, and a host of commercial food products and new business ventures revolving around the culinary arts. Lidia is partner with her daughter, Tanya Bastianich Manuali, in commercial housewares, Lidia's Kitchen, while as C.E.O. of Nonna Foods, her son-in-law, Corrado Manuali, is expanding the brand to include food.
In 2010, Lidia and her son partnered with Oscar Farinetti and Mario Batali to open a 50000 square feet (4,645.2 m²) food emporium in Manhattan that is devoted to the food and culinary traditions of Italy. Called Eataly, its motto is "We sell what we cook, and we cook what we sell".
.
For the 2010 holiday season, Lidia's new TV production company, Tavola Productions, created an animated holiday children's special for Public Television "Lidia's Christmas Kitchen: Nonna Tell Me a Story" to go along with the book by the same title that was written by Lidia.
Lidia has also been a featured chef on Great Chefs
Television series and has been a guest judge on Top Chef.
In 2011, Lidia feature as a guest judge on the second season the american version of MasterChef
Lidia has authored several cookbooks to accompany her television series:
Joe Bastianich occasionally appears in Lidia's series to offer wine expertise. He, his wife Deanna, and their three children live in Greenwich, Connecticut
.
Tanya Bastianich Manuali, with her husband Corrado Manuali and their two children, live just a few blocks away from Lidia. Tanya serves as the main on-camera cultural expert for all the segments of Lidia's PBS series Lidia's Italy that are filmed in Italy.
All four generations of the family have appeared at one time or another as participants in Lidia's TV shows; Lidia's Family Table where Lidia has given simple pasta making lessons to her grandchildren, and episodes of Lidia's Italy that often feature the adult Bastianich family members touring the various areas of Italy that relate to their personal interests and family-owned business enterprises.
In an interview by American Public Television, Lidia shared her opinion on how important it is for her to pass family traditions to her family:
Pula
Pula is the largest city in Istria County, Croatia, situated at the southern tip of the Istria peninsula, with a population of 62,080 .Like the rest of the region, it is known for its mild climate, smooth sea, and unspoiled nature. The city has a long tradition of winemaking, fishing,...
, present-day Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
) is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
chef, author, and restaurateur.
Specializing in Italian cuisine
Italian cuisine
Italian cuisine has developed through centuries of social and political changes, with roots as far back as the 4th century BCE. Italian cuisine in itself takes heavy influences, including Etruscan, ancient Greek, ancient Roman, Byzantine, Jewish and Arab cuisines...
, she has been a regular contributor to public television cooking show
Cooking show
A TV cooking show is a television program that presents the preparation of food, in a kitchen on the studio set. The host of the show, often a celebrity chef, prepares one or more dishes over the course of the show, taking the viewing audience through the food's preparation showing all...
lineups since 1998. In 2007, she launched her third TV series, Lidia's Italy. She also owns several Italian restaurants in the U.S. in partnership with her daughter Tanya Bastianich Manuali and her son, Joe Bastianich: including Felidia (founded with her ex-husband, Felice), Del Posto, Esca, and Becco in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
; Lidia's Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...
; and Lidia's Kansas City in Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...
.
Early life
Lidia Matticchio Bastianich was born on February 21, 1947, in the town of PulaPula
Pula is the largest city in Istria County, Croatia, situated at the southern tip of the Istria peninsula, with a population of 62,080 .Like the rest of the region, it is known for its mild climate, smooth sea, and unspoiled nature. The city has a long tradition of winemaking, fishing,...
, then newly ceded to Yugoslavia, now part of Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
. Living nine years under Tito's Communist regime, her father, Vittorio, in 1956 sent his wife and their two children to visit relatives in Trieste
Trieste
Trieste is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is situated towards the end of a narrow strip of land lying between the Adriatic Sea and Italy's border with Slovenia, which lies almost immediately south and east of the city...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, while he remained in Istria to comply with the government's mandate that one member of a family remain in Yugoslavia to ensure that the rest would return. Hours later, Vittorio himself left Yugoslavia under cover of darkness and crossed the border into Italy.
The Motika family reunited in Trieste, Italy
Trieste
Trieste is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is situated towards the end of a narrow strip of land lying between the Adriatic Sea and Italy's border with Slovenia, which lies almost immediately south and east of the city...
, joining other families who had claimed political asylum from Communist Yugoslavia starting in 1947, many of whom remained in refugee camps throughout Italy for years. For the Motika family, the camp was one that had been an abandoned rice factory in Trieste that had been converted to a Nazi concentration camp during World War II and partially destroyed towards the end of the war, the Risiera di San Sabba
Risiera di San Sabba
Risiera di San Sabba was a Nazi concentration camp for the detention and killing of political prisoners during World War II, located in Trieste, northern Italy. SS members Odilo Globocnik and Karl Frenzel, and Ivan Marchenko are all said to have participated in the killings at this camp. Erwin...
. According to Lidia in a PBS documentary, although a wealthy Triestian family hired Lidia's mother as a cook–housekeeper and her father as a limousine driver, they remained residents of the refugee camp. Two years later, their displaced persons application was granted to emigrate to the U.S. In 1958, unlike the earlier groups of World War II refugees whose journeyed to their adoptive homelands by "liberty ships" that took at least seven days arrive at their destination in North and South America, the Motika family had the good fortune to reach New York City by airplane.
Bastianich gives credit to the family's new roots in America to their sponsor, Catholic Charities
Catholic Charities
Catholic Charities is a network of charities whose aim is "to provide service to people in need, to advocate for justice in social structures, and to call the entire church and other people of good will to do the same." It is one of the largest charities in the United States...
:
After a few weeks, the family moved to North Bergen, New Jersey
North Bergen, New Jersey
North Bergen is a township in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. As of the United States 2010 Census, the township had a total population of 60,773. Originally founded in 1843, the town was much diminished in territory by a series of secessions. Situated on the Hudson Palisades, it is one...
, near the Chevrolet
Chevrolet
Chevrolet , also known as Chevy , is a brand of vehicle produced by General Motors Company . Founded by Louis Chevrolet and ousted GM founder William C. Durant on November 3, 1911, General Motors acquired Chevrolet in 1918...
factory where Lidia's father began working as a mechanic. Later, they moved to Astoria, Queens
Astoria, Queens
Astoria is a neighborhood in the northwestern corner of the borough of Queens in New York City. Located in Community Board 1, Astoria is bounded by the East River and is adjacent to three other Queens neighborhoods: Long Island City, Sunnyside , and Woodside...
, where they had family friends and relatives living in a large enclave of fellow Istrian immigrants. Lidia started working part time when she was 14 (the legal age for a work permit), during which time she briefly worked at the Astoria bakery owned by Christopher Walken
Christopher Walken
Christopher Walken is an American stage and screen actor. He has appeared in more than 100 movies and television shows, including Joe Dirt, Annie Hall, The Deer Hunter, The Prophecy trilogy, The Dogs of War, Sleepy Hollow, Brainstorm, The Dead Zone, A View to a Kill, At Close Range, King of New...
's father. After graduating from high school, she began to work full-time in local Italian restaurants. Meanwhile, at her sweet sixteen birthday party, she was introduced to her future husband, Felice "Felix" Bastianich, a fellow Istrian immigrant and restaurant worker from Labin (Albona), Istria. The couple married in 1966 and gave birth to their son, Joseph, in 1968.
From Queens to Manhattan (1971–1981)
In 1971, the Bastianich couple opened their first restaurant, the tiny Buonavia, meaning "good road", in the Forest HillsForest Hills, Queens
Forest Hills is a neighborhood in the borough of Queens in New York City, New York, United States.-Neighborhood:The neighborhood is home to upper-middle class residents, of whom the wealthier residents often live in the neighborhood's Forest Hills Gardens area...
section of Queens, with Lidia as its hostess. They created their restaurant's menu by copying recipes from the most popular and successful Italian restaurants of the day, and they hired the best Italian-American chef that they could find. After a brief break to deliver her second child, Tanya Bastianich Manuali, in 1972, Lidia began training as the assistant chef at Buonavia, gradually learning enough to cook popular Italian dishes on her own, after which the couple began adding traditional Istrian dishes to their menu.
The success of Buonavia led to the opening of a second restaurant in Queens, Villa Secondo. It was here that Lidia both gained the attention of local food critics and started to give live cooking demonstrations, a prelude to her future career as a TV cooking show hostess.
In 1981, Lidia's father died, and so the family sold their two Queens restaurants and purchased a small Manhattan brownstone containing a pre-existing restaurant on the East Side of Manhattan near the 59th Street Bridge to Queens, which they converted into what would eventually become their flagship restaurant, Felidia (a contraction of "Felice" and "Lidia"). After liquidating nearly every asset they had to cover $750,000 worth of renovations, Felidia finally opened to near-universal acclaim from their loyal following of food critics, including The New York Times which gave them three stars.
Expansion (1993–2011)
Although Lidia and Felice sent her two children to college and did not expect either of them to go into the restaurant business, her son Joseph, who had frequently did odd jobs for parents at Felidia as a child, gave up his newly launched career as a Wall Street bond trader and in 1993 convinced his parents to partner with him to open Becco (Italian for "peck, nibble, savor") in the Theater District in Manhattan. Like Felidia, Becco, it was an immediate success and led to the family's opening of additional restaurants outside New York City, starting with Lidia's Kansas City in 1997, the family's first restaurant outside of New York.In 1993, Julia Child
Julia Child
Julia Child was an American chef, author, and television personality. She is recognized for introducing French cuisine to the American public with her debut cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and her subsequent television programs, the most notable of which was The French Chef, which...
invited Lidia to tape an episode of her PBS series Julia Child: Cooking With Master Chefs, which featured acclaimed chefs from around the U.S., preparing dishes in their own home kitchens. The guest appearance gave Lidia confidence and determination to expand the Bastianich family's own commercial interests. After many disagreements about the direction their entrepeneurial and personal lives had taken — most notably, the pace of the expansion and character of their business — Lidia and Felice divorced in 1997. Lidia continued expanding her business empire while Felice remarried and transferred his shares in the business to their two children. He passed away on December 12, 2010.
By the late 1990s, Lidia's restaurants had evolved into a true family-owned and operated enterprise: Erminia Motika, her mother, maintained the large garden behind the family home, from which her daughter Lidia chose the ingredients to use in recipe development; son Joe was the chief sommelier
Sommelier
A sommelier , or wine steward, is a trained and knowledgeable wine professional, commonly working in fine restaurants, who specializes in all aspects of wine service as well as wine and food matching...
of the restaurant group, in addition to branching out into his own restaurant line with friend and famed Italian chef Mario Batali
Mario Batali
Mario Batali is an American chef, writer, restaurateur and media personality. In addition to his classical culinary training, he is an expert on the history and culture of Italian cuisine, including regional and local variations. Batali co-owns restaurants in New York City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles,...
; daughter Tanya Bastianich Manuali used her Ph.D in Italian art history as the backdrop for a travel-agency partnership with her mother called Lidia's Esperienze Italiane, where Tanya and her friend Shelly Burgess Nicotra (the wife of Felidia's Executive Chef Fortunato Nicotra since 1996) conducted tours throughout Italy to view the historic architecture and sample genuine Italian cuisine; Tanya's husband, attorney Corrado Manuali, became the restaurant group's chief legal counsel.
The James Beard Foundation Award
James Beard Foundation Award
The James Beard Foundation Awards were established in 1990 and are often called "The Oscars of Food." Held on the first weekend in May, the Awards honor the finest chefs, restaurants, wine professionals, journalists, cookbook authors, restaurant designers, and other food professionals in the...
named Lidia Bastianich the Best Chef: New York City for 1999. In 2000, Ms. Bastianich participated as a celebrity judge on MasterChef USA, an adaptation of the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
MasterChef (UK TV series). Her son, Joseph Bastianich
Joseph Bastianich
Joseph "Joe" Bastianich is a restaurateur and vineyard owner. He is also a judge on the competitive cooking shows, MasterChef and MasterChef Italy.-Early life and education:...
, would later go on to star as a celebrity judge on the Gordon Ramsay
Gordon Ramsay
Gordon James Ramsay, OBE is a Scottish chef, television personality and restaurateur. He has been awarded 13 Michelin stars....
version of MasterChef.
The family's business empire includes vineyards in Italy, olive groves in Istria, and a host of commercial food products and new business ventures revolving around the culinary arts. Lidia is partner with her daughter, Tanya Bastianich Manuali, in commercial housewares, Lidia's Kitchen, while as C.E.O. of Nonna Foods, her son-in-law, Corrado Manuali, is expanding the brand to include food.
In 2010, Lidia and her son partnered with Oscar Farinetti and Mario Batali to open a 50000 square feet (4,645.2 m²) food emporium in Manhattan that is devoted to the food and culinary traditions of Italy. Called Eataly, its motto is "We sell what we cook, and we cook what we sell".
Television (2001–present)
In 1998, PBS offered Lidia her own TV series which became Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen. It established her as a fixture in the network's line-up of cooking-shows. Since then she has hosted two additional television series, Lidia's Family Table and Lidia's Italy, the latter of which was launched in April 2007. Lidia ends each episode of her show with an invitation to join her and her family for a meal, Tutti a tavola a mangiare! (Italian for "Everyone to the table to eat"). She also appeared on an episode of the 2006 PBS series Chef's StoryChef's Story
Chef's Story is a 26-Part Public Television series featuring Dorothy Cann Hamilton interviewing well known chefs and restaurateurs.Hamilton, founder and CEO of The French Culinary Institute, conducts the interviews in front of culinary students in the first half of each episode.Each chef then moves...
.
For the 2010 holiday season, Lidia's new TV production company, Tavola Productions, created an animated holiday children's special for Public Television "Lidia's Christmas Kitchen: Nonna Tell Me a Story" to go along with the book by the same title that was written by Lidia.
Lidia has also been a featured chef on Great Chefs
Great Chefs
Great Chefs is a franchise of cooking shows and cookbooks that began with thirteen half hour programs produced for the American Public Broadcasting Service entitled Great Chefs of New Orleans...
Television series and has been a guest judge on Top Chef.
In 2011, Lidia feature as a guest judge on the second season the american version of MasterChef
Lidia has authored several cookbooks to accompany her television series:
- La Cucina di Lidia
- Lidia's Family Table
- Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen
- Lidia's Italian Table
- Lidia's Italy
- Lidia Cooks from the Heart of Italy
Personal life
Lidia resides in Queens, New York, with her widowed mother, Erminia Motika. Lidia's own kitchen has served as the stage set for all three of her TV series, and the garden that Erminia maintains provides many of the ingredients featured in the shows. Erminia, who answers to "grandma", frequently serves as a sous-chef in various episodes of Lidia's TV series.Joe Bastianich occasionally appears in Lidia's series to offer wine expertise. He, his wife Deanna, and their three children live in Greenwich, Connecticut
Greenwich, Connecticut
Greenwich is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. As of the 2010 census, the town had a total population of 61,171. It is home to many hedge funds and other financial service companies. Greenwich is the southernmost and westernmost municipality in Connecticut and is 38+ minutes ...
.
Tanya Bastianich Manuali, with her husband Corrado Manuali and their two children, live just a few blocks away from Lidia. Tanya serves as the main on-camera cultural expert for all the segments of Lidia's PBS series Lidia's Italy that are filmed in Italy.
All four generations of the family have appeared at one time or another as participants in Lidia's TV shows; Lidia's Family Table where Lidia has given simple pasta making lessons to her grandchildren, and episodes of Lidia's Italy that often feature the adult Bastianich family members touring the various areas of Italy that relate to their personal interests and family-owned business enterprises.
In an interview by American Public Television, Lidia shared her opinion on how important it is for her to pass family traditions to her family:
External links
- Lidia's Italy Lidia Bastianich's official Web site.
- Celebrity Judges 2000 MasterChef USA official web site