MILAN – You can’t overestimate the importance of a chair, or so says Enrico Buonocore, the founder and chief executive of Langosteria, the high-end Italian seafood restaurant that’s aiming to become a global brand.
It’s a week before this Wednesday’s opening of Langosteria’s new flagship restaurant and bar on the upper floors of Palazzo Fendi in the heart of Milan’s Montenapoleone fashion district and Buonocore is remarkably relaxed. The lights in the elevators need dimming, technicians just had to fix the sound system and workers are still putting the final touches on one of the site’s four kitchens. But Buonocore wants to talk chairs.
“This chair is part of the feeling of the brand,” Buonocore said as he points to his wooden chair with a red and white striped pillow, the same as dozens of other chairs at nearby tables.
He gestures around the restaurant to other design touches, including the wood floors, marble tabletops and the monumental staircase handcrafted to resemble a seashell. He picked those and almost every detail in the restaurant, but for the chair he went a step further, partnering on the design with Fendi Architectural Studio, the firm that led the restaurant’s buildout.
“Designing a chair is not simple,” said Buonocore. “We tried for six months. The first chair was too big and the second chair was too small. Now it’s perfect.”
Buonocore’s Goldilocks chair epiphany points to a wider maniacal attention to detail he has employed in building Langosteria from one restaurant in Milan, opened in 2007, to a budding international brand that added two eateries in Italy’s fashion capital and has further expanded to the coast near Portofino, Paris’ Cheval Blanc Hotel and the slopes of Saint Moritz.
In April or May, a Langosteria restaurant is slated to open in London’s Old War Offices Building in the Raffles Hotel. That will be followed in June by one in Porto Cervo on Sardinia’s Costa Smeralda, an area frequented by the world’s super yachts, including those owned by Jeff Bezos and Bernard Arnault, that will bring the total to eight.
An opening in Miami has been delayed to no sooner than 2029 due to a change in the developer and the complexity of the overall project that covers a square block and includes the demolition of one hotel and the complete refurbishment of two others. Madrid is also coming soon.
As Langosteria expands its footprint to more places frequented by people willing to shell out €200 or more per person for a meal, Buonocore is striving to get the mix right between growth and the standardisation and economies of scale that make expansion appealing to those drafting business plans.
While few very high-end restaurants have successfully scaled – Cipriani for example – mid-range restaurants like Din Tai Fung have perfected a standardised formula that in the case of the Taiwanese dumpling juggernaut has meant guaranteeing the high quality of the food even as it approaches 200 locations. But there is little to distinguish those locations, which might be the point.
Buonocore said he has the right balance between standardisation and local character that has traditionally ruled high-end restaurants. He ensures the restaurants have throughlines that tie them together – above all the quality of the fish and the simple preparation – but are different enough to make sure they offer a unique experience. There is a collection of dishes that appears at all locations, but there are also some offerings only available in one location. And that chair, it will eventually be the same across most of the restaurants, but with different colours.
“There are subtle differences so you know you are at Langosteria, but you also know what city you are in,” said Alexander Werz, the chief executive of Karla Otto, the luxury fashion public relations firm, who has eaten at multiple Langosteria locations and held work events there. “What links them is the impeccable seafood and service so if that’s what you are looking for, you know it’s an option.”
Buonocore has built relationships over the past two decades to guarantee he gets top seafood daily. He has also invested in an in-house 45-person corporate operations group that includes teams for construction, marketing, payroll and project management, roles that are often filled by outside consultants at other restaurant groups the size of Langosteria.
Revenue this year is forecast to rise about 3 percent to €65 million, growth that is somewhat muted because of a temporary closure and the new Palazzo Fendi restaurant opening slightly behind schedule. In 2026, with a full year of the new Milan location and contributions from London and Sardinia, Buonocore said revenue will rise to €75 million. The five-year business plan forecasts revenue climbing to about €120 million
This year, the group will book €7 million in EBITDA, a measure of profitability that strips out some financing costs and taxes. That profit margin is sharply curtailed by the large corporate team, which Buonocore says he has cultivated to help with the rolling out of the new openings in the coming years.
“When I speak with colleagues [in the restaurant business] and present my team, people say, ‘you’re crazy, how many people did you say you have?’” said Buonocore. “It’s okay. I’m crazy. But if you don’t have a good corporate team, you’re going to make mistakes. I prefer to go at my speed with the right people. This is my strategy.”
The return on the investment in the big corporate team will come now as the new restaurants open, he said.
Buonocore still owns 60 percent of Langosteria with the rest held by Archive, the family investment fund controlled by Remo Ruffini, Moncler’s chief executive and largest shareholder. Pietro Ruffini, the son of Remo and Archive’s CEO, was a regular Langosteria client when he approached Buonocore in 2018 about a partnership.
“We believed Langosteria could make the jump from successful local restaurant to global brand,” said Ruffini. “We had a two-hour conversation the first time and from there everything started. We soon realized that we had the same long-term vision for Langosteria.”
Whereas Langosteria’s first Milan restaurant is outside of the core downtown frequented by tourists – though it is in an area that has become a magnet for fashion companies with Armani’s headquarters a few blocks away – the new restaurant is on Via Montenapoleone, making it a lunch option for shoppers and potential dinner destination for those staying at nearby luxury hotels.
With decorations in the new restaurant including framed vintage posters, books, small sculptures and pieces to a kids’ football table game, Buonocore has tried to straddle the line between luxury and hominess, or maybe it is luxury hominess. That is also shown in the restaurant’s layout that puts the main kitchen within sight of many of the tables.
“In America, London, Paris, a lot of kitchens are in the basement and the food is brought up by elevator; that’s not possible for me,” said Buonocore. “I want to see the eyes of the chef. If my chef is not happy, the food is not happy. This is the reason why I don’t want the kitchen in the basement.”
In creating his luxury dining experience, Buonocore has made a few counterintuitive choices, among them the decision to serve meals in this order – antipasto, secondo, primo. Pasta after the main dish, sacrilege for the Italian way of conceiving a multi-course meal, has become Buonocore’s signature.
“If the main fish arrives after the pasta you don’t respect the fish,” said Buonocore. “I saw so many main courses go in the trash because people couldn’t eat it after the pasta. But you’ll always eat the pasta [even at the end of a meal] because eating pasta makes you happy.”
He squirms when asked to pick the dishes for his ideal Langosteria meal – who would have the audacity to ask a parent who their favourite child is? – but then consents. It goes like this, in this order: his signature pappa al pomodoro (a slow-cooked tomato sauce topped with clams), tiepido di mare (warm seafood salad bathed in lemon-infused olive oil), charcoal grilled black grouper with mashed potatoes and pak choi, closing with Breton lobster linguine.
Then he can’t help himself and suggests he might swap in tuna carpaccio with aubergines for the antipasto and king crab for the main course.
He has no doubts though about the outsized importance of the chairs, which are being produced in the Brianza furniture-producing district north of Milan. The London restaurant will have the same chairs, maybe with a different fabric.
“The chair is part of the feeling of the Langosteria brand,” Buonocore said. “It must be perfect. If you want to create something very special, you must control everything.”
