Fertitta Buys Cafe Fiorello and Two Other Manhattan Fixtures

Cafe Fiorello, the Italian chophouse that has sat across from Lincoln Center on the Upper West Side since 1974, is getting a new owner, and he is one of the most prolific restaurant buyers in the country.

Tilman Fertitta, the Texas billionaire restaurateur who also owns the NBA’s Houston Rockets, is taking over three Manhattan restaurants from the bankrupt Fireman Hospitality Group: Trattoria dell’Arte, Fiorello’s and Bond 45. The deal is valued at $22 million, according to the New York Post, which reported it as a Landry’s acquisition. Eater New York, which flagged the news, says Ciao Hospitality Group will serve as the new operator in conjunction with Fertitta.

Not everything in the Fireman portfolio is making the move. Two Washington, D.C., restaurants, a recently opened outpost of Cafe Fiorello and Fiorella Italian Kitchen & Pizzeria, are set to close this month as part of the deal, as Eater DC reported first.

For Fertitta, the purchase fits a pattern of collecting restaurants with long histories. He has bought Keens Steakhouse in New York and Union Oyster House in Boston, both of which date to the 1800s. His Landry’s empire is far larger than those trophies suggest: it includes steakhouse chains such as Morton’s, Mastro’s, Del Frisco’s and Strip House, along with the Mexican restaurant Dos Caminos and the sushi bar Blue Fin. He is also a part owner of the Catch Group, whose New York restaurants include Corner Store, the Eighty Six, Or’esh and Cafe Charmant.

The buying spree continues even as Fertitta holds a diplomatic post. Eater describes him as President Donald Trump’s appointed ambassador to Italy, and notes that he has parked his superyacht in Washington.

The sale closes a difficult chapter for the Fireman group. Eater, citing the Post, says the company began showing strain after the pandemic, and that the death last fall of its founder, Shelly Fireman, at 93, did not help. The group was left with nearly $10 million in secured claims. This summer, its RedEye Grill, known as the home of the famous dancing shrimp, closed after three decades across from Carnegie Hall.

For Upper West Siders and the Lincoln Center crowd, the practical question is what changes at Fiorello’s, if anything. The source reporting does not say, and it offers no word on menus, staffing or timing for the handover. What it does establish is that one of the neighborhood’s longest-running pre-theater tables, open for more than five decades, has survived its owner’s collapse and will continue under the umbrella of a buyer who has made a habit of preserving, and expanding, restaurants with deep roots in the city.