Scott Tacinelli & Angie Rito

Don Angie - New York, NY

Husband and wife Angie Rito and Scott Tacinelli are the chefs and owners of beloved, Michelin-starred Italian American restaurant Don Angie in the West Village of New York City. Together they are also the co-authors of Italian American, their critically acclaimed cookbook published by Clarkson Potter in October 2021.

The duo met over 12 years ago working at Park Avenue Seasons in New York City—Tacinelli working as a cook after a pivot from a career in corporate sales while Rito began as a server and quickly joined the kitchen team. What began as a friendship quickly blossomed into romance after a three-week backpacking trip across Spain in 2009.

Before opening Don Angie together, the two helmed the kitchen at Quality Italian, where they invented the renowned “Chicken Parm Pizza,” and later the acclaimed pop-up restaurant dinnertable.

Today, Scott Tacinelli and Angie Rito serve up their delicious, comforting takes on modern Italian-American cuisine in the heart of New York City’s West Village at Don Angie, challenging the perception of more conventional Italian-American cuisine by incorporating global flavors in subtle and surprising ways, drawing on both the foods they grew up eating with their families and their collective world travels.

The restaurant has garnered a tremendous amount of critical acclaim, receiving a glowing, 2-star critic’s pick review from the New York Times in 2018 and named one of Esquire’s Best New Restaurants in America in 2018. Tacinelli and Rito earned a nomination for Best Chef New York City and New York State by the James Beard Foundation in both 2019 and 2020, respectively. In May 2021, Don Angie was awarded a Michelin star and in 2022, Tacinelli and Rito were announced as James Beard Foundation semifinalists in the Outstanding National Chef category