Tu vuò fà l'americano, the New York panettone with a Sicilian heart

Italian pastry and cuisine treated like a precious jewel, indeed the most precious of jewels: a diamond. Because that is where Francesco Realmuto, 55 years old, originally from Baucina in the province of Palermo, comes from. He left almost 35 years ago: he landed in New York and stayed there. "For a few years I was a bricklayer,' he says. Then I managed to get hired at a diamond-cutting company whose headquarters is on the iconic 47th Street, where I stayed for 12 years. But I couldn't do that job for the rest of my life, so at a certain point I changed direction completely'. And he chose the restaurant business. Italian, of course. Today, Francesco Realmuto is the head of Realmuto Hospitality Group, already known in the Big Apple for L' Arte del Gelato and Filaga Pizzeria, two signs that have become symbols of Italian style overseas: the group, which closed 2023 with a turnover of 10 million dollars, now employs 140 people. Two years ago the Realmuto Hospitality group inaugurated Puya, Tacos de Puebla, a taqueria inside the Rockefeller Center, testifying to Francesco Realmuto's other great passion for Mexican cuisine.

Now, in the last two months, Realmuto Alta Pasticceria has opened, two corners of Italian and Sicilian excellence in New York, one in the heart of the West Village, on Seventh Avenue, the pulsating and vibrant heart of New York City, and the other in the heart of Penn Station, the very central 34th Street railway station. Two premises with an unmistakable Italian style with restaurant, café, ice-cream parlour, and snack bar. The first of the two venues occupies a space of over 500 square metres, with almost one hundred covers, designed by the Mariotti architectural studio of Italian architect Deborah Mariotti (who also designed the second in the same style): style and Made in Italy triumph with materials such as Italian marble and wood decorations.

The heart of the project is the haute patisserie led by Sicilian Giuseppe Zito, who flew from his Mezzojuso, a town of arbëreshë origin in the province of Palermo, to New York. After numerous experiences in Italy, where he runs his family's bar in Mezzojuso, and after winning two awards for the best panettone, award-winning pastry chef Giuseppe Zito bets on this project by creating a line of pastries where contemporary techniques coexist with classic tradition. Flanking Giuseppe Zito are Vittorio Masaracchia and Serena Barbato, two young Sicilian talents from Palazzo Adriano, in the province of Palermo, and the Crotonese Niko Periti, an expert pastry chef.

At Christmas, the workshop of Realmuto Alta Pasticceria Italiana churns out chocolate, gianduia, pistachio and classic artisan panettone cakes. But the real novelty is the panettone Tu vuò fà l'americano, the brainchild of Giuseppe Zito and master leavening expert Niko Periti, which combines two traditions: that of Italian artisan panettone with mother yeast and natural leavening, and iconic American ingredients such as candied apples and cinnamon, maple syrup nuggets and pecans.

"Alta Pasticceria Realmuto," says Francesco Realmuto, "is not only a tribute to the Italian pastry tradition, with recipes and authentic Italian raw materials, but it is also a tribute to the Italian lifestyle of the 70s and 80s, glorious years when the Belpaese was also asserting itself as a symbol of culinary excellence. Our concept is The Italian Lifestyle of the 70s and 80s, because what inspired us were those years when the Italian dream was beginning to be born, represented also in the culture of food and above all in hospitality. With Realmuto Alta Pasticceria Italiana I want to share with our customers an idea related to the Italian lifestyle. My memories of my childhood and adolescence living in Sicily helped me recreate an experience that was missing in New York: traditional Italian pastry. Understood, not only as a place to enjoy Italian pastries that faithfully reproduce the classic Italian pastry tradition, but as an experience of being Italian'.