After months of illness, Gianfranco Sorrentino, one of the pioneers of Italian gastronomic entrepreneurship in the Big Apple, has died, leaving behind his wife Paula Bolla and two children, Sofia and Edoardo, who will continue to carry on his projects.
Sorrentino was owner of two restaurants, Il Gattopardo and The Leopard at des Artistes, but also president of Gruppo Italiano, a nonprofit organization with the goal of promoting Italian culture and gastronomy in New York. He has dedicated his life to creating a culinary bridge between Italy and the United States, focusing on young people: GI offers scholarships to students who want to attend the Culinary Institute of America and, with a view to passing on the heritage of Italian cuisine, he would open the doors of his restaurants to trainees to “teach them the simplicity and quality of the products because, otherwise, this tradition is destined to disappear,” he told Park Magazine.
Originally from Naples, he came to the United States in 1984 after working his way around Europe, opening his first venue in the early 1990s in Chicago, Bice. Then he went on to Los Angeles and, finally, New York. Sette MoMA became as iconic to Italians as it was to Americans: it was the first fine dining restaurant inside a museum institution, the Museum of Modern Art. Il Gattopardo, which opened shortly thereafter, was also a success, recognized as the benchmark for Italian cuisine in the Big Apple. Celebrities such as Martin Scorsese, Jimmy Fallon and Paul McCartney, but also politicians, representatives of the art world and finance have dined at the tables of Il Gattopardo. Sorrentino had the charisma that could engage his diners, “Hospitality is not how you serve the customer, but how you make them feel welcome,” he he stated in Park Magazine.
