A Classic Italian Spot on the West Side Laura Maioglio

Laura Maioglio was raised in an apartment above Barbetta, the landmark Italian restaurant owned by her family since 1906. For over one hundred years, her family has been serving authentic Italian cuisine, where famous faces are regularly spotted around their ornate dining room and garden.

Growing up she never imagined getting involved with the restaurant due to her creative nature, so she pursued a career as an architect studying art history and design in college. Knowing she sought her career outside of the restaurant, her father sold it.

“He thought it would not fulfill my intellectual interests,” she said. “However, once it was sold I was determined to keep it in the family. I went to the man who bought the business and cried for him to sell it back without telling my father.”

Once her father realized how important it was to keep Barbetta in the Maioglio family, Laura took ownership in the early 1960s. Using her eye for design and artistic background she decided to remodel the dining room. Maioglio closed the restaurant during renovations, reopening it in the summer of 1962.

“My father’s restaurant was handsome, it was good looking,” she said. “But I had been exposed to the beauty of 18th century Italian interiors during different trips traveling through Italy as a child, and I decided to approach it like an art historian.”

Maioglio redesigned the dining room to create the famous opulent atmosphere that remains today. A year later she added the back garden, a rarity in Manhattan at that time. Guests enjoy northern Italian cuisine while surrounded by elaborate chandeliers, detailed flower arrangements, and furniture modeled after authentic 18th century designs.

Like so many other Upper West Side residents, Maioglio has remained connected to its close-knit community. She has been a member of the board of the Times Square Alliance since its formation in 1992, helping to improve and promote Times Square, highlighting the creativity and energy that have made the area an icon of entertainment.

She is also extremely passionate about preserving historical landmarks in New York City. Barbetta is made up of four brownstones from the late 1800s, and she works hard to preserve their history. “It is important that we remember our past,” she said. “You want to know what the old city used to look like, and that is very important to me.”

Maioglio also regularly visits her family’s home in Pimonte, Italy, the region that has inspired the restaurant’s menu since her ownership in the early 1960s. Barbetta was one of the first Italian restaurants in America to introduce dishes that were truly authentic, their most famous being the use of truffles during their peak season from October to Christmas.

The restaurant became so famous for their truffles that Bloomingdale’s asked Barbetta to do a truffle exhibition, where 500 portions of Fonduta con Tartufi were served to notable guests. Their dining room has seen the likes of Hillary and Bill Clinton; Mario Cuomo brought Governor Andrew Cuomo as a child, and Andy Warhol has also graced their tables, which Maioglio remembers distinctly.

Maioglio remembers a night when she was meeting her husband for dinner at Barbetta before they were married, and after he arrived in a hurry she noticed his disheveled hair. “I told him he looked like a radish,” she said laughing. “We didn’t speak the rest of the dinner.”

As their meal wrapped up, they walked over to Andy Warhol’s table to say hello, and Warhol complimented her husband by asking if he was an actor. “He has never let me live it down, the night I thought he looked like a radis,h Andy Warhol thought he was a movie star,” Maioglio said.

Warhol ended the evening by drawing a soup can in the restaurant’s guestbook, one of the many treasures the Maigiolo family has collected during the restaurant’s 109 years.