If you’ve had an unforgettable meal in New York City, you can probably thank John Meadow, who is the mastermind behind some of the greatest restaurants in town. As the president and founder of LDV Hospitality, he has brought the dream of ‘La Dolce Vita’ to your taste buds and built one of the top hospitality groups in the world. Starting with Scarpetta, the brand now boasts 20 restaurants and bars, spanning nine cities, and five countries worldwide, and they’ve got their sights on more to come. We sat down with the amiable entrepreneur to get his backstory, find out why Scarpetta has endured, and talk about his love for New York City.
How did you end up in the restaurant world in the first place?
It’s what I always wanted to do. The first job I said I ever wanted was to be a New York City pastry baker. I worked in restaurants in high school, then went to Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration, and worked as the manager of the Oak Room at the Plaza Hotel. Along the way, I helped open Eleven Madison Park. And then in 2004, I opened my first bar. I had always wanted to be in the restaurant space, so at 24, I raised money and opened my first spot.
What was this first space in 2004?
I opened a bar across the street from Madison Square Garden. The Local West. It was there for almost 20 years. I didn’t love the neighborhood, though. Now it’s evolving. I signed a lease on West 14th and 9th Avenue in the old Village Idiot space in 2005, and I opened a restaurant. I was young and I was stupid. The first thing I did, the bar was a huge success, and the first restaurant was the biggest failure of my career. The saving grace was the neighborhood really believed in me, and I had another 10 years of the lease. I had to change it, let’s do Italian, and that was the first Scarpetta, which opened in May of 2008. It’s a bit of a phoenix rising story. We were nominated by the James Beard Foundation as the best restaurant in the country, received a 3-star review in The New York Times, and built a business.
What was the concept?
The idea of doing Italian was a natural progression, and I’ve always been pretty cognizant of the two pretty different worlds that are Italian and American, which is a 100+ year marriage, a strong cultural identity here in New York City. My grandfather was an Italian immigrant, and according to him, there were two Italian restaurants in New York City, and the other ten thousand didn’t count. That’s probably a little too extreme, but there are clearly two very distinct lanes, and I think the opportunity with Scarpetta was to do kind of a New York cosmopolitan, modern, sophisticated version of authentic Italian. We are not shackled by my grandfather’s version of Italian and therein lies a rather contemporary international lens, so I think that we speak our own vernacular language of Italian cuisine at Scarpetta that’s been well-received all over the world.
Why do you think that Scarpetta has had such longevity?
People love New York City. Scarpetta is called a modern Italian dinner party. What is it? It’s a New York restaurant with Italian ingredients. We use Italian ingredients to cook Italian food, but there’s a New York soul to it. There’s a high-low dichotomy where grit meets glam, and that’s why that first location in the Meatpacking District, we were one of the few high-end restaurants down there. Certainly one of the only 3-star review restaurants down there, but we didn’t have tablecloths. Now no one has tablecloths, now tablecloths are so passé that they’re coming back. The idea of doing something equal parts comfort, everyday, easy comfort, effortless elegance, that’s always been our vernacular. I think that the food and the service approach, all of it, is very much encapsulated by the Scarpetta ethos, but that’s not different from New York City. At the end of the day, yes New York is popular, but it’s also not uptight, and I will always go back to that high-low mix. Scarpetta feels like New York, we were able to find success in New York, and the world likes a New York story, so we were able to take this show on the road. 18 years later, I think that all the gimmicks in the world, all the social media, all the hype, all the maximalism, all the loud click bait news clipping, I understand the way the world’s gone, but there is always a place for real food and warm hospitality, and that’s something that we’ve never wavered from. With thatwe’ve been able to maintain relevance and consistency. We have had the same chef and the same pastry chef since day one.
How did you grow the business?
Back in 2010, we opened in The Cosmopolitan Las Vegas. We had a long run in the Fontainebleau in Miami, and I think within the hotel space we found a whole niche for our business. So much of the hotel identity is really created and certainly amplified through the food and beverage experience because it’s public, so that’s what people are posting about today. Often hotel food and beverage, they are great at breakfast, they are great at saying yes to the customer. They give the customer what they want, when they want, and how they want, and that’s historically the definition of luxury in a hotel space, but that doesn’t create a real restaurant that gets real locals to go. Scarpetta at the Hotel Seville on 29th and Madison, 95% of our clientele are New Yorkers. People are choosing to stay in that hotel because they know that the right New Yorkers have dinner downstairs. That can only be cultivated when you create a real restaurant that happens to be within a hotel. We have about 20 bars and restaurants now, 3 are not in hotels, so 17 out of 20 are in hotels. Our business really is really hotel food and beverage. We are restaurant people, but in the luxury hotel space.
What have been some of your best memories over the past 15 years with Scarpetta?
When we reopened in August 2020 after the pandemic, we reopened outside, a beautiful garden. The pandemic was crazy for lots of reasons, but for me it was also a time of great clarity. I turned 40 at the height of the pandemic, I planned this big, grand tuxedo 40th birthday party at Scarpetta, but that got canceled because it was in the middle of the pandemic. I could’ve gone off and done anything, and I said you know I want this. This is what I want to do, this is my life’s work, and you know, with that clarity, I felt so privileged and joyous to work with the team to reopen that restaurant. I remember, the beginning of August 2020, we were out in the street, we did a beautiful installation of flower, and we had fun with it and not take ourselves so seriously. We did the sgroppino, which is the vodka and lemon sorbet, cute little thing, and we did fried chicken on the menu because you’re in the street! It’s not a normal dynamic, and within those first couple of days, Jay-Z and Beyoncé came in and they did the whole fried chicken dinner and they ordered fabulous wine. They had been to our various locations a few times before, but that was a moment that was quite special.
What’s been one of the best celeb sightings?
Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s pretty good, and very New York. I think celebrities change, so when I was in my 20’s starting out, the celebrities I saw come to our restaurants, George Clooney, Mick Jagger, Bono, Madonna, Lady Gaga, we’ve seen it all. Now it’s shifted right and I think that the New York celebrity culture, it all feels a little different. Of late, I’m a real Knicks fan and Jalen Brunson comes in all the time, and he’s our new New York captain superstar, so that’s been fun.
Hailey Bieber and RJ King at Scarpetta at The Daily’s 15th anniversary dinner
Tell me about your other New York locations
In New York, we have Scarpetta in Seville, we opened American Cut in 2012 down in Tribeca and in the past few years we’ve always been [listed] in the top 15 best steakhouses in the world, which we are very proud of. From 2020 through 2024. I did a lot of international projects. It was fun, but there’s no place like New York, there’s just not, and I realized I go back to what is Scarpetta, Italian ingredients, New York soul. New York is still the protagonist of our career. We don’t just do Italian restaurants. We’re a New York company, and we are based here, and this is where we have the best VIP guest relations. This is where I can walk into any restaurant in this town and say hello to a bus boy, bus boys run restaurants. I know New York, and my life is here. Let’s do more, so in 2024, we opened at the Maidstone Hotel in East Hampton, which I understand is not New York City, but it is kind of the same clientele base. In January of last year we opened Barlume, it’s our Mediterranean brasserie. I always wanted a more casual alternative to Scarpetta, and we found that with Barlume. This past summer we took over The Ace in Brooklyn, it’s a beautiful ground-up construction by Roman and Williams. We did our first Asian restaurant Koju, which is a 14 seat sushi omakase experience, which has been super fun to do something different. I partnered with a guy named Hiro Nishida who created Megu back in the day if you recall, and that’s been a real privilege and joy to work in that space. It’s small, it’s confined, it functions perfectly. And then most recently in September, we opened La Tazza D’oro, on 18th and Park Avenue South, which is just the quintessential Italian bar. There’s coffee and pastries in the morning and then we do cute little tea sandwiches, we have a more full swing kitchen offering, and we have Aperol Spritz, Negronis, and all that in the afternoon. Every morning I’ll start my morning meetings in the cafe. It’s very charming, so that’s been a fun project. Now we are eager to do more in New York. The grass is not greener next door, the grass is greenest where you water it.
How do you keep track of all of these spaces?
We have a wonderful team of people. 25 people on the corporate team. We have a lot of tenure. The hardest thing to run is a slow restaurant. The easiest thing to run, 20 restaurants, the easiest to run is Scarpetta, which is also the highest grossing, which is also our baby, is also our flagship. At Scarpetta we have career professionals there both in the back and the front, and because of that, we produce quality product.
What’s your favorite thing on the menu these days?
We built our whole company, everything around the spaghetti tomato and basil. Certainly, I have eaten more portions of that than every other human ever, and I still eat it and I still love it. For me, if you said what’s the perfect Scarpetta meal, our crudo program is really fantastic, both local and imported seafood. To start the meal with a kind of a composed dish of raw seafood is very refreshing, light, and gives you that protein hit.
John Meadow (Courtesy)
You love fashion and have great personal style. Are you still a fashion guy?
I’m embarrassed to say my OCD has gotten worse. The joy of the organized closet only becomes more and more severe, and that’s complex because my closet’s just growing and growing, so it’s a good problem to have. I still love it. I have a relationship with all of these Italian tailors, so they travel the world. We have a good take care of each other mentality whether you’re in London, Tokyo, or New York City. The customer spending $7,000 on a bespoke suit, I want that guy or girl in the restaurant. The tailors bring wonderful clientele into my universe, I’ll host them in all these restaurants and hotels. I’ll put them up in the hotels and they’ll do the trunk show in the hotel, and then my wardrobe grows. Everyone is kind of winning together, but it is a joy and a pleasure of mine.
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