Friday, September 27, 12:00 noon
Members $55, guests $65

In the New York restaurant scene, it seems you can't lift your fork without running into a veteran of some venerable kitchen—a Daniel grad, a Jean-Georges protégé, a River Café alum. Such a restaurant is Pino Luongo's seminal Le Madri, a paean to the cucina of Italian mothers and, more to the point here, the birthplace for Il Valentino. It was there that chef Bruna Alessandria first met service captain Mirso Lekic, and the seeds for Il Valentino were sown.

They opened it in 1997 with partners Hido Holli and Lumi Hadri. In an interview with Nation's Restaurant News, Lekic said that he and Alessandria view their restaurant as "an exclusive interpretation of Northern Italian cuisine…everything…is exactly as we'd do it in Italy." In a city crazy for authentic Italian, that culinary philosophy has elicited glowing praise. J. Walman rated the restaurant A+ and raved about its "glorious" spinach tartelette with melted cheese and white truffle oil and the risotto with white truffles. In her New York Times review, Ruth Reichl described Il Valentino as "an oasis." From Alessandria's "simple, tasty Tuscan fare," Reichl singled out the shaved artichoke salad, the goat cheese wrapped in zucchini, and the marinated lamb chops with mustard seeds. "Even the risotto is special," she added. Alessandria rethinks classics in appealingly homey ways," according to Bob Lape in Crain's NY Business, who found Il Valentino "a delightful newcomer."

Although Alessandria's primary language is Italian, she translates her native dishes to a New York kitchen with relative ease. "What does it matter that she speaks but a smattering of English?" asked Where New York, "her food speaks volumes." Before she was recruited by Luongo, Alessandria worked as a personal chef for Bruno Ceretti, of the renowned Piedmontese Ceretto winemaking family. With Il Valentino, she and Lekic are on the way to starting a restaurant dynasty of their own.