With a potential closure looming over the Upper East Side Italian restaurant, the owner’s daughter reflects on growing up in its dining room, and what the future holds for the family business

By Gea Bozzi

I took my first steps on Mezzaluna’s terra-cotta floor. Our restaurant, on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, had already been up and running for over a decade by the time I was born. My father, Aldo, opened its doors in 1984, selling salads and carpaccios at a moment when the New York dining landscape was divided, as one critic put it, between old-style red-sauce spots and fancy Frenchified salons with menus the size of a small-town phone book. Carlos and Nicky, members of the staff, were among the first people to visit me at Lenox Hill Hospital.

It’s no surprise that I started pre-school without speaking a word of English, because READ ON