Aug 20 2020 27 mins
Donna Lennard reflects on her 26 years in the industry and the beautiful, large, extended family she built with it. Donna started out as a filmmaker and supported herself through graduate school at NYU by working at restaurants across the city. During this time, she met her original Il Buco partner, Alberto Avalle. The two became fast friends and turned their hobby of collecting American antiques into a business when they opened up an antique shop on Bond Street in 1994. Not even a year later, they transformed their space into a neighborhood restaurant focused on ingredients. Ever since they opened, Il Buco has been the motherland… the soul of the brand.
Fast forward 26 years, Donna now owns and operates three restaurants, a pop-up in Montauk and an original line of products and has built a community inside and outside of the restaurants. In this episode, we talk about the early days of Il Buco, creating her new cookbook (Il Buco: Stories & Recipes), how Il Buco Alimentari put her on the map in a different way and the team she’s built or her ‘la banda del buco’ that has turned into her forever family. Be sure to tune in and follow @ilbuconyc, @ilbuco_av, @bottega_ilbuco, @ilbucovita and @fromthegrounduppod.