Lanterna Bianca opened in a Brooklyn brownstone in 1979 with twelve seats, one wood oven, and Nonna’s recipes. We are still here. The table is longer now. The recipes are the same.
— mangia con noi.Nonna opened the room. Mom kept it. Now we’re running it — with the same recipes, the same pasta board, and a wood oven that has not been off since 1981.
Maria Vittoria Bianca arrived in Brooklyn in 1968 with a brown suitcase and a hand-written recipe book. She opened Lanterna in 1979 with her husband Gianluca, twelve seats, a single wood oven, and a rule that the pasta would be made by hand, every day, until she couldn’t.
She kept the rule. The pasta board she rolled on is still here.
Caterina Bianca-Romano took the kitchen in 2003 and the dining room in 2005. She doubled the seats to twenty-four, added a private room upstairs, and started pouring wine from the Veneto for the first time.
She also did the thing nobody saw: she kept the wood oven going. Twenty-three years, no break.
I am Sofia. I grew up at the four-top in the back. I rolled my first pasta when I was eight. I left Brooklyn for ten years, came back, and Mom handed me the keys in 2022.
The recipes have not changed. The pasta is still by hand. The wood oven is still going. We have, however, added a cocktail program — with Mom’s permission.
Thick hand-rolled Tuscan pici, pecorino we age in the basement, and so much black pepper that you’ll taste it on the back of your tongue tomorrow. A bowl. A small grater. A glass of something cold.
Book the table →
Above the dining room there is a private table for fourteen, candles, an old painting Mom inherited, and a window looking onto the street. It is the room we’ve fed two families through engagements, anniversaries, a wedding rehearsal, and three different birthday years.
The menu is set with you. The pasta is still by hand. The room is yours for as long as you want it.
Between Atlantic and Pacific. The brownstone with the white lantern. Two stops on the F.
— just look for the lantern.Reservations the easiest way to get a table. Walk-ins welcome at the bar from five. Pasta of the day is poured from 5:00 until we run out.
— vieni, c’è sempre posto.Send us a note. Mom or Sofia will reply within the hour — tell us the night, the party, the occasion.