Pietros - NY
Italian restaurant · Midtown East ·
Classic Italian-American steakhouse famed for chicken Parm, steak
Classic Italian-American steakhouse famed for chicken Parm, steak
"The 1932-born Italian steakhouse stalwart—famed for chicken Parm, Caesar salad, and a celebrity crowd—makes a comeback a few blocks away, the third move in its storied lifetime." - Tierney Plumb
"This is an old-school Italian spot in every sense. It’s been open since 1932, and it’s one big room with big tables and white tablecloths - so it feels like the kind of place where you’d eat with some 1960s ad execs, or before catching Our Town or Hello, Dolly! on Broadway. The service is friendly, and while the menu is full of classics like a caesar salad and chicken, veal, and shrimp parmigiana, the steak happens to be very good, with a thick, crispy char on the outside. Get one the next time you have a group meal planned with your in-laws, or you need to eat alone at the bar after a long day in Midtown. (Pro tip: the bar has free peanuts.)" - Bryan Kim
"A decades-old Italian steakhouse is returning to Manhattan, relocating a couple of blocks from its former home at 232 East 43rd Street to 890 Second Avenue (near East 47th Street), with a plan to open the new restaurant in August, according to a spokesperson; Lee & Associates and Stellar Management facilitated the real estate deal alongside a broker from Cushman & Wakefield. This will be the restaurant’s third move (it relocated in 1984 from a brownstone to the East 43rd Street address) and its roots go back to 1932, when brothers Natale and Pietro Donini founded it after coming from Parma, Italy. The longtime caretakers have been Bill Bruckman (who married into the family) and his son David Bruckman, and the Bruckman family is behind this relaunch: per a spokesperson, “They will have the same recipes and will capture the same old-school Italian charm that patrons knew and loved at the previous location!” Coverage in 2023 noted that while regulars may have “aged out of” being “the power-player,” the spot still deserved credit as one of the city’s “most overlooked” Italian steakhouses (Grub Street), and a New York Times eulogy recorded longtime fans such as Michael Kors, who said, “There is no Carbone without [the restaurant].” He added, “and I’ve always liked that you can still feel some of the ‘Mad Men’ era here. [The restaurant] is the last of the Mohicans.” External expansion attempts have been mixed: a Long Island offshoot in Roslyn opened by another Bruckman son, Billy, closed after less than a year in 2024 (Newsday). The family has also signaled a desire to modernize: Bill Bruckman told the Times last year, “It’s bittersweet, but it’s time to bring [the restaurant] into the 21st century,” noting practical reasons for change — “I’m not going to miss having to repeatedly kick our air-conditioner to get it to work.”" - Emma Orlow
"Pietro’s is an old-school Italian spot in every sense. It’s been open since 1932, and it’s one large room with big tables and white tablecloths—the kind of place where you’d eat with some 1960s ad execs, or before catching Our Town on Broadway. The menu is full of classics like caesar salad and various parms, but they also happen to have a very good charred steak. Get one the next time you have a group meal planned with your in-laws, or you need to eat alone at the bar after a long day in Midtown. (Pro tip: the bar has free peanuts.)" - neha talreja, bryan kim, hannah albertine, molly fitzpatrick
"The nearly century-old Pietro’s steakhouse has closed (a sign noted May 23 as the last day); opened in 1932 during Prohibition by Natale and Pietro Donini, the restaurant moved to its current address in 1984 and may reopen elsewhere." - Luke Fortney
