Pino Luongo

Who is Pino Luongo?

Giuseppe "Pino" Luongo is an American-based Italian restaurateur, businessman, and memoirist. He owned such Manhattan restaurants as Il Cantinori, Le Madri, Centolire, Coco Pazzo, Coco Pazzo Cafe, Coco Pazzo Teatro, and Tuscan Square. All of his New York restaurants have closed. Morso, a restaurant that he helped create but does not own, remains open as of June 2012.

One of six children of Antonio and Mafalda Luongo, he was raised in Tuscany's Porto Santo Stefano region, where he learned to cook from his mother. At age 19, he registered for the Italian military as a “conscientious objector”. Nine years later he was called up, for which he blamed his father, a military veteran, and from whom he would remain estranged until the latter's death. He fled conscription to New York in 1981, and began his career as a busboy at a famed Italian eatery, Da Silvano, of which he would later become manager. On 23 October 1983, he opened his first establishment, Il Cantinori, with two partners. His next restaurant, which opened in 1988, was Sapore di Mare in Wainscott, Long Island. Infamous for his temperament, Luongo later earned the nickname "Pino Noir".