Lidia Giuliana Matticchio Bastianich (Italian: [ˈliːdja dʒuˈljaːna matˈtikkjo baˈstjaːnitʃ]; born February 21, 1947) is an Italian-American[2] celebrity chef, television host, author, and restaurateur.
Specializing in Italian and Italian-American cuisine, Bastianich has been a regular contributor to public television cooking shows since 1998.
[3] Born in allied-occupied Pula, Matticchio Bastianich's family emigrated to the United States when she was 7 months old during the Istrian–Dalmatian exodus.
She owns or has owned several Italian restaurants in the U.S. in partnership with her daughter Tanya Bastianich Manuali and her son Joe Bastianich, including Felidia (founded with her ex-husband, Felice), Del Posto (closed and sold in 2021), and Becco in Manhattan; Lidia's Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh (closed in 2019); and Lidia's Kansas City in Kansas City, Missouri.
She also is a partner in Eataly locations in New York City, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Silicon Valley, Dallas, and São Paulo, Brazil.
[8] Bastianich, like many other Istrian Italians, fled to Trieste, Italy, during the Istrian-Dalmatian exodus, with her brother Franco and her mother on the pretense of visiting their sick aunt Nina, who was a personal chef.
[8] According to Bastianich in a Public Television documentary, although a wealthy Triestine family hired her mother as a cook–housekeeper and her father as a limousine driver, they remained residents of the refugee camp.
[10] In 1958, Bastianich and her family reached the United States, arriving in North Bergen, New Jersey, and later settling in Astoria, Queens, in New York City.
Although Lidia and Felice sent their two children to college without expectations that either would go into the restaurant business, Joseph, who had frequently done odd jobs for his parents at Felidia, gave up his newly launched career as a Wall Street bond trader;[18] in 1993, he convinced his parents to partner with him to open Becco (Italian for "peck, nibble, savor") in the Theater District in Manhattan.
[24] Recent openings include Eataly in Los Angeles in 2017,[25] in Las Vegas in 2018,[26] in Toronto in 2019, Silicon Valley in 2022, and Dallas.
[27] The fall of 2010 also marked the debut of Lidia's Kitchen, an exclusive line of commercial cookware, and serving ware for QVC.
In the series, Bastianich celebrates the diversity of cultures across the United States and explores the American immigrant experience.
[31] Bastianich ends each episode of her show with an invitation to join her and her family for a meal, Tutti a tavola a mangiare!
[33] In 2020, alongside son Joe Bastianich and Antonino Cannavacciuolo, she was a judge on the cooking competition show on Sky, Family Food Fight.
[91] After many disagreements about the direction their entrepreneurial and personal lives had taken (most notably, the pace of the expansion and character of their business), Lidia and Felice divorced in 1998.
Bastianich's own kitchen has served as the stage set for four of her television series, and the garden that Erminia maintained provided many of the ingredients featured in the shows.
In an interview by American Public Television, Bastianich spoke of how important it is for her to pass on family traditions:[93] Food for me was a connecting link to my grandmother, to my childhood, to my past.
[94][95] The subsequent lawsuit was dismissed in 2012 by a lower court that held that the plaintiff was not a slave because she received health insurance, room and board and other perks in lieu of getting paid.
[99][100] BoysGrow, a local non-profit vocational training program, is another organization that she works with by hosting annual Benefit Dinners since 2013 at her restaurant Lidia's in Kansas City.
She is also involved with Jesuit Refugee Service, The Child Center of NY and hosts at classes at August Martin High School in Queens, New York.
Bastianich is also actively involved with various non-profit organizations that are focused on promoting and celebrating Italian and Italian-American culture and heritage.