OUR STORY
italian roots, english style
'ino's roots reach back to the mid 1980's at the corner of Church and Walker Streets, in an area then labeled on subway maps as Industrial Chinatown but soon familiar to us as Tribeca. It was there in 1987 that Danny Emerman and his Tuscan chef-partner, Sandro Prosperi, opened Barocco.
The restaurant became closely connected to the SoHo art world and some of the pioneering women gallerists of the era, including Barbara Gladstone, Mary Boone, Paula Cooper, Anina Nosei, Holly Solomon and Lisa Spellman.
As the galleries began moving west in the 1990s, Danny and Sandro followed, opening Bottino in West Chelsea in 1997. Bottino became a gathering place for the emerging gallery district, known for Sandro’s simple, elegant Tuscan cooking, its modern design and its stunning hidden garden—but perhaps most of all for its hospitality.
In 2018, Manchester-raised, Cordon Bleu-trained chef Jamie Kenyon joined Bottino, bringing renewed energy and a youthful culinary perspective. His partnership with Danny and Sandro grew from a shared passion for Italian cooking—pasta in particular—and an approach that respects Italian traditions while embracing a modern sensibility.
’ino is the first restaurant created by this new partnership. Rooted in Italian cooking and the warmth of the neighborhood enoteca, it gives Jamie the freedom to express his love of English cooking as well. House-made pastas and seasonal Italian dishes share the menu with Scotch egg, English cheeses and sticky toffee pudding. The wine list makes room for sparkling wines from Sussex, while the bar offers a panoply of proper English cocktails.
Architect Thomas Leeser, who designed Bottino in 1997, returned to create ’ino’s intimate dining room, with its charred-wood paneling and eight-seat bar. The walls continue Danny and Sandro’s longstanding relationship with artists and galleries through quarterly exhibitions of work by established and emerging artists.
The result is a warm, modern Italian enoteca with an English accent—and the newest chapter in a New York restaurant story forty years in the making.