{"id":108808,"date":"2026-01-22T17:49:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T17:49:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/108808\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T17:49:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T17:49:18","slug":"laura-maioglio-longtime-owner-of-barbetta-on-restaurant-row-has-died","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/108808\/","title":{"rendered":"Laura Maioglio, Longtime Owner of Barbetta on Restaurant Row, Has Died"},"content":{"rendered":"

Laura Maioglio \u2014 the force of taste, tradition and meticulous hospitality behind Barbetta, the storied Italian landmark on W46th Street \u2014 has died, the restaurant announced Wednesday evening.<\/p>\n

\"BarbettaLaura Maioglio, the longtime owner of Barbetta on Restaurant Row. Photo montage Denice Flores Almendares\/Barbetta Archive<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is with deep sadness that we share the passing of Ms Laura Maioglio, the heart and soul of Barbetta,\u201d the Barbetta family wrote in a statement, calling her guidance \u201can unwavering commitment to excellence\u201d over more than six decades.<\/p>\n

For generations of New Yorkers, Barbetta has been more than a pre-theater reservation, it\u2019s been a time capsule: connected brownstones, a candlelit dining room crowned by old-world chandeliers and a garden that feels like it shouldn\u2019t exist in the middle of Midtown. That atmosphere \u2014 equal parts Piedmont and Manhattan \u2014 was Maioglio\u2019s life\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

Born and raised in New York, Maioglio attended the Brearley School and later graduated magna cum laude from Bryn Mawr College with a degree in art history. Her family roots reached back to Piedmont, where she spent long stretches throughout her life, including a year studying at the University of Florence. Those extended stays helped shape the particular Barbetta she built: a restaurant anchored in northern Italian cuisine, confident in its regional identity and deeply serious about ingredients, wine and craft.<\/p>\n

Barbetta was founded in 1906 by her father, Sebastiano Maioglio, who immigrated from Piedmont and opened the original restaurant on W39th Street near the old Metropolitan Opera House. In 1925, he bought the four brownstones on W46th Street that remain Barbetta\u2019s home.<\/p>\n

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\nPHOTO ESSAY: Behind the scenes at Barbetta. Photos: Denice Flores Almendares<\/p>\n

Laura Maioglio stepped into leadership in 1962, and quickly made the boldest change in the restaurant\u2019s history: she closed and remade it. In a Manhattan Sideways interview<\/a>, she recalled learning that her father had sold Barbetta \u2014 and intervening, emotionally and directly, to keep it in the family. She then set about transforming the space in the style of 18th-century Piedmont, a decision that reshaped Barbetta\u2019s identity for decades to come.<\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t simply decorate. She curated. Maioglio hunted for pieces that felt true \u2014 objects with their own history \u2014 and she was famously patient in pursuit of them. She once described negotiating for two years to obtain the chandelier that became a centerpiece of the dining room, originally from a royal family home and later shipped over and reassembled in New York.<\/p>\n

The attention to detail extended everywhere: reproductions were commissioned only when authentic pieces weren\u2019t possible in quantity, and the room\u2019s sense of European grandeur became part of what diners came for, as much as the food.<\/p>\n

Maioglio\u2019s Barbetta, as W42ST reported in 2024<\/a>, stayed rooted in her father\u2019s founding philosophy \u2014 authentic Italian cooking, made accessible, even as she refined it. She \u201cchanged it a lot in its details, not in its philosophy,\u201d she said, explaining that she worked to make the restaurant even more authentically Piedmontese.<\/p>\n

That Piedmont identity wasn\u2019t just branding. It was the kitchen, too: handmade pastas, regional techniques, and dishes tied to place. Barbetta\u2019s menus became a form of living archive \u2014 with items marked by the year they first appeared, and Piedmont specialties highlighted.<\/p>\n

\"LauraLaura Maioglio of Barbetta was honored in the W42ST Best of Awards in 2024. Illustration: Chelsey Hill <\/p>\n

At W42ST\u2019s Best of 2024 awards<\/a>, Maioglio was honored with a special recognition celebrating Barbetta\u2019s century of service on Restaurant Row \u2014 a dining room that has welcomed everyone from Andy Warhol to Lin-Manuel Miranda. Although she was unable to attend, Maioglio sent a message that Phil O\u2019Brien read to the crowd, thanking her staff for carrying forward her father\u2019s legacy. \u201cAs you know, Barbetta is a very special place for me,\u201d she wrote. \u201cMy dad would be proud to know Barbetta is still going after all these years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maioglio also helped push New York\u2019s Italian dining scene forward by insisting on ingredients that, at the time, were still rare in the United States. In the Sideways interview, she recalled Barbetta being the first restaurant in the country to serve truffles \u2014 at a time when they simply weren\u2019t available here commercially. The workaround was as old-school as it gets: someone would fly in with a box of truffles from Milan, then hand-deliver them straight to the restaurant.<\/p>\n

And in one of those Barbetta stories that sounds like a joke until you remember it\u2019s Barbetta, Maioglio said the restaurant even had truffle hounds \u2014 and staged a demonstration with the dogs not just in the garden, but at Carnegie Hall.<\/p>\n

Barbetta was also, she noted, among the earliest adopters of espresso culture in America: Maioglio said her father imported an espresso machine as far back as 1911.<\/p>\n

To the dining room regulars, Maioglio wasn\u2019t just the keeper of antiques and culinary milestones. She was the presence. The woman who noticed. The one who could tell you what was wrong with a dish, and also tell you the history of the room you were sitting in.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s a perfectionist,\u201d longtime staff member Eduardo told Manhattan Sideways, describing how everything \u2014 down to the lamb and the flowers \u2014 had to be \u201ca certain way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maioglio was also a storyteller with impeccable timing, especially when it came to the unlikely collision of Barbetta\u2019s old-world elegance and New York\u2019s pop-culture chaos.<\/p>\n

She recalled her mother \u2014 glamorous, devoted to the public-facing rhythm of the place \u2014 mistakenly worrying that a scruffy-looking guest might not afford the restaurant. The guest was Mick Jagger.<\/p>\n

When the Rolling Stones later learned her mother had died, Maioglio said they went out, bought flowers, and returned to place the bouquet in front of her photo.<\/p>\n

\"DrNobel prize winner Dr Gu\u0308nter Blobe and wife Laura Maioglio. Photo: Barbetta Archive<\/p>\n

Maioglio\u2019s husband, Dr G\u00fcnter Blobel, was a scientist at Rockefeller University who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1999. Maioglio kept the restaurant and her private life distinct \u2014 but Barbetta, as always, managed to sit at the intersection of art, culture and the city\u2019s famously mixed dinner tables.<\/p>\n

In its statement announcing her death, Barbetta said the restaurant will remain open \u201cfor the time being,\u201d continuing the traditions Maioglio cherished, and encouraged patrons to keep gathering there \u2014 \u201cto enjoy the food, wine and warmth that have always defined this house.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maioglio, the statement added, often referred to the staff as her \u201cdream team,\u201d and said they hoped to carry her legacy forward.<\/p>\n

\"Barbetta'sBarbetta\u2019s Laura Maioglio and the Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer at a press conference on Restaurant Row in May 2017. Photo: Phil O\u2019Brien<\/p>\n

\u201cI was saddened to hear of the passing of Laura Maioglio,\u201d said Tom Harris, president of the Times Square Alliance. \u201cLaura was a long-time member of the Alliance\u2019s board of directors, and she carried on her family\u2019s legacy operating one of the most elegant and historic restaurants in New York City \u2014 a true jewel of the Times Square neighborhood. She cared deeply about our community and was known for never settling for \u2018good enough.\u2019 I will always remember Laura for her dedication, her unwavering commitment to high standards and excellence, and the indelible mark she left on our neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barbetta wasn\u2019t merely \u201cold,\u201d under Laura Maioglio, it remained alive \u2014 not as nostalgia, but as a living room for the city. And as she once put it, some places can\u2019t truly be explained: \u201cI think that you have to simply experience it to see it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Laura Maioglio \u2014 the force of taste, tradition and meticulous hospitality behind Barbetta, the storied Italian landmark on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63,7666,23047],"class_list":{"0":"post-108808","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manhattan","8":"tag-manhattan","9":"tag-manhattan-headlines","10":"tag-manhattan-news","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-nyc","14":"tag-obituary","15":"tag-restaurantrow"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}