While Mamma Leone is probably most famous from Billy Joel’s song, “Movin Out” from his 1977 album The Stranger with the lyrics: “Mamma Leone left a note on the door, she said Sonny, move out to the country”, there really was a Mamma Leone.
Virtuoso Enrico Caruso talked Luisa Leone into converting her Manhattan home into the twenty seat, Leone’s Italian Ristorante in 1906.
Customers sat on wine crates and paid 50 cents for a full course serving of fresh home made traditional Italian sauces, pasta and bread.
Served in bodacious quantities, offering unpretentious food under false grape vines and red and white checkered table cloths.
By the 80’s Mamma Leone’s had expanded to the largest restaurant in Manhattan, serving 700,000 meals a year in eleven dining rooms.
Although it closed in 1994 due to rising rent costs (its now condominiums), her recipes still live in a famous cookbook.
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