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New York City Italian concept Il Mulino enters push for more licensees

The company is looking for hotel operators to open locations of its trattoria, steakhouse, and fine-dining restaurants

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

July 7, 2023

2 Min Read
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Italian restaurant concept Il Mulino New York has expanded its licensing division with the hopes of having new locations of its Il Mulino New York, the more casual Trattoria Il Mulino, and steakhouse concept Il Mulino Prime open in hotels.

There is currently one Il Mulino Prime restaurant, in the New York City neighborhood of SoHo, as well as company-owned Il Mulino New York restaurants, a fine-dining concept, in the neighborhoods of Tribeca, the Upper East Side, and the East Village, plus one each in the Long Island town of Roslyn, N.Y.; Atlantic City, N.J., Boca Raton, Fla.; and Sunny Isles Beach, Fla.

There are two licensed Trattoria Il Mulino locations at the Swan & Dolphin Hotel in Orlando, Fla., and the Hilton in Nashville. A licensed variation of the steakhouse concept, called Bistecca by Il Mulino, is at the Mt. Airy Lodge in Mt. Airy, Pa.

Il Mulino specializes in the food of the Italian region of Abruzzo in central Italy on the Adriatic coast.

The trattoria is more focused on pasta, pizza and salad, while Il Mulino New York has more of a focus on seafood and other entrées, a higher end wine list, white tablecloths and higher average checks.

Both concepts use the same sauces, Galligan said.

“Italian plays a big role in everybody’s palate, as Italian steak does, so our Prime concept also would do very well. It’s a nice combination of steaks and pastas. It’s a good bar scene, a good crowd, a good vibe, great great food, a lot of inter-reaction in service, which is very very important,” he said.

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Company president Brian Galligan said the three licensed locations were performing well, although he declined to give further details, noting that Il Mulino is privately owned, and was hoping to find new opportunities.

“We are looking aggressively now to … leverage that expertise and success and looking to business partners to continue to grow the brand domestically,” he said. Adding that hotels were ideal licensees.

“They have more infrastructure and more opportunities than independent restaurants,” he said.

Galligan said having an “iconic” brand name like Il Mulino was an amenity both for hotels and mixed-use properties that included condominiums, and could potentially improve room rates and real estate valuations.

In exchange for licensing fees, Galligan and his company help with the design of the restaurants, bring the culinary team to New York City to train for “several weeks at a time, to really understand the culture, and the sauces, and the preparation.”

Then a pre-opening team takes care of tableware and trains service staff. It also provides purchasing specifications.

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“We get involved in every aspect,” Galligan said. “We have to find the right partnership that’s going to protect the brand and continue to move forward with it.”

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected] 

About the Author

Bret Thorn

Senior Food Editor, Nation's Restaurant News

Senior Food & Beverage Editor

Bret Thorn is senior food & beverage editor for Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality for Informa’s Restaurants and Food Group, with responsibility for spotting and reporting on food and beverage trends across the country for both publications as well as guiding overall F&B coverage. 

He is the host of a podcast, In the Kitchen with Bret Thorn, which features interviews with chefs, food & beverage authorities and other experts in foodservice operations.

From 2005 to 2008 he also wrote the Kitchen Dish column for The New York Sun, covering restaurant openings and chefs’ career moves in New York City.

He joined Nation’s Restaurant News in 1999 after spending about five years in Thailand, where he wrote articles about business, banking and finance as well as restaurant reviews and food columns for Manager magazine and Asia Times newspaper. He joined Restaurant Hospitality’s staff in 2016 while retaining his position at NRN. 

A magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University in Medford, Mass., with a bachelor’s degree in history, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Thorn also studied traditional French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine in Paris. He spent his junior year of college in China, studying Chinese language, history and culture for a semester each at Nanjing University and Beijing University. While in Beijing, he also worked for ABC News during the protests and ultimate crackdown in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Thorn’s monthly column in Nation’s Restaurant News won the 2006 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for best staff-written editorial or opinion column.

He served as president of the International Foodservice Editorial Council, or IFEC, in 2005.

Thorn wrote the entry on comfort food in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, 2nd edition, published in 2012. He also wrote a history of plated desserts for the Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, published in 2015.

He was inducted into the Disciples d’Escoffier in 2014.

A Colorado native originally from Denver, Thorn lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Bret Thorn’s areas of expertise include food and beverage trends in restaurants, French cuisine, the cuisines of Asia in general and Thailand in particular, restaurant operations and service trends. 

Bret Thorn’s Experience: 

Nation’s Restaurant News, food & beverage editor, 1999-Present
New York Sun, columnist, 2005-2008 
Asia Times, sub editor, 1995-1997
Manager magazine, senior editor and restaurant critic, 1992-1997
ABC News, runner, May-July, 1989

Education:
Tufts University, BA in history, 1990
Peking University, studied Chinese language, spring, 1989
Nanjing University, studied Chinese language and culture, fall, 1988 
Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine, Cértificat Elémentaire, 1986

Email: [email protected]

Social Media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bret-thorn-468b663/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bret.thorn.52
Twitter: @foodwriterdiary
Instagram: @foodwriterdiary

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