Friday, September 26, 12:00 noon
Members $60, guests $70

What kind of restaurant has famous French chef Daniel Boulud and local young lovelies packing the place for pizza? At Bella Blu on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, it’s hard to know what to look at first: the beautiful people, the riotous swirls of yellow and blue on the plaster walls, or the food coming out of the mosaic brick pizza oven. Lucky for us, chef Paolo Floess will be bringing his excellent Northern Italian downtown so we can enjoy it without distraction.

Nightclub & Bar Magazine described the food—a mixture of French, Italian, and Mediterranean—as “exceptional,” writing that the “blend of cultures adds spice to Bella Blu.” They loved the “unique flavors” of the chestnut fettuccine with wild boar ragù and black gnocchi stuffed with salmon mousse, calamari, and fresh tomatoes. Where New York described Bella Blu as “perfumed with the delectable smells of truffles, garlic, and freshly baked pizza.” Along with the fettuccine and gnocchi, they praised the “splendid thin-crust pizzas” and the “splendid” pear-almond tartlet with caramel sauce and chocolate polenta soufflé.

Floess came to New York from his native Italy. He grew up in the Northeastern town of Bolzano, on the Austrian border, and began dishwashing, he wrote in his résumé, for pocket money for school and to buy skis. Floess then switched to the culinary side of things at the four-star Hotel Armentarola in Val Badia. After several years cooking around northern Italy, Floess met Theo Shoenegger, chef of San Domenico NY, and moved to the United States to work for Schoenegger at the New York Times three-star restaurant. Next, Floess took a job at Tony May Hostaria under Haymo Helzenbaumer, where he learned the Southern Italian menu. The following year, Enrico Proietti opened Bella Blu with Marc Vetri as executive chef and Floess in the kitchen. A year later, Floess took the reins, continuing the “terrific Italian menu” and “unusual pasta dishes,” as they were described by Access: New York.