Viewers of public television might know Lidia Bastianich as the playful, uber-Italian grandmother
type she has portrayed on screen since her first cooking series, Lidia's Italian Kitchen,
debuted in 1998.
But in addition to being a cuddly nonna who loves to whip up pasta for her five grandchildren,
Bastianich, 74, is an award-winning chef, restaurateur, and bestselling cookbook author
with a compelling backstory as an Italian immigrant who made it big in the American
food world.
Born in 1947 in Istria, a northeastern area of Italy that became part of Yugoslavia after
World War II, Bastianich's early childhood was spent under difficult circumstances. Fortunately
in 1958, U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower opened the country to political refugees,
and Bastianich's family was able to finally emigrate, as noted by Feast. There, in the
New World, Bastianich began constructing her new life as an authority on all things Italian
food.
Today, chef and cookbook author Bastianich is probably most well known for her long-running
public television cooking series, including Lidia's Family Table, Eating in with Lidia,
and, her most recent series, Lidia's Kitchen. In addition to her cooking shows, Bastianich
is also the author of 13 cookbooks and one memoir, and she is the chef and owner of restaurants
in New York and Kansas City. This multi-hyphenate food personality has come a long way.
As a child growing up on the Istrian peninsula, Bastianich, for a time, had a happy life,
according to Feast magazine. She recalled that she spent much of her childhood with
her beloved grandmother, out among the farm animals and small selection of crops. However,
in 1956 Bastianich's parents must have felt a sense of growing danger, because they decided
to flee to the refugee camp in Trieste. Bastianich remembers mourning the loss of all that was
familiar to her, telling Feast:
"I felt a pang that I'm not going to see Grandma. I'm not going to see my friends. I'm not going
to see my pet goat — whatever it is at that age that you are concerned about."
After two trying years in a refugee camp called San Sabba, Bastianich's family members received
their visas to emigrate to America, and they relocated to Astoria, Queens, where a relative
lived, as reported by The New York Times. In her new family home in New York, Bastianich
cooked dinner every night, while her father worked a demanding job as a mechanic for Chevrolet
and her mother sewed for the clothing company Evan Picone.
Later on, Bastianich enrolled in Hunter College with a scholarship, but she dropped out of
the school just two years later in order to marry her new sweetheart, Felice, who had
also emigrated from Istria. In 1971, according to The Daily Meal, the two opened the first
of Lidia's many restaurants: Buonavia in Forest Hills, Queens. It became so successful that
the couple opened a second spot. Felice and Lidia Bastianich's Italian fare continued
to prove successful in New York, where, in 1983, the couple went on to open Felidia on
the Upper East Side.
Other restaurants, including the Theater District's Becco, were to follow, and Bastianich developed
a reputation as an accomplished chef and immigrant success story. In 1993, public television
star and revered home cook Julia Child invited Bastianich as a guest on her series Julia
Child: Cooking with Master Chefs.
"I felt like she was my friend. You know, I watched her on television.
The episode was later nominated for a 1994 Emmy award. Just a few years later, PBS offered
Bastianich her own show, Lidia's Italian Kitchen, and her first cookbook, Lidia's Italian Table,
was published as a companion to the show.
In 2010, soaring on the success of her various television, cookbook, and restaurant projects,
Bastianich partnered with son Joe, chef Mario Batali, and businessman Oscar Farinetti to
open the first U.S. location of Eataly, the sprawling, 50,000-square-foot conglomeration
of Italian-themed restaurants and shops located in New York's Flatiron District.
The venture was an immediate success, with locals and tourists alike filling their shopping
baskets with fresh pasta, aged cheeses, and fine wines. In October 2010, just a few months
after Eataly opened, The New York Times called the location, quote, "enormously crowded."
As of October 2021, there are seven Eataly locations across the country.
Now a long way from her difficult origins across the Atlantic, Bastianich has created
a life — and a career — on new shores. And through her food, she has learned about
the culture of her second home. Bastianich told GBH in March 2021,
"I'm an immigrant. I wanted to know more about America, about what makes America America."
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