Before there was a Carbone, there was Il Mulino. The original Il Mulino opened in Manhattan in the 1980s, founded by brothers from Abruzzo. It helped popularize the idea of Italian fine dining in the U.S., leading to an expansion throughout the NYC metropolitan area, to South Florida, and beyond.
This week, Il Mulino New York takes another step, introducing a line of premium jarred pasta sauces. The announcement will take place this weekend at the 2024 Winter Fancy Food Show in Las Vegas, but the three Il Mulino New York sauces—pomodoro, vodka, and marinara—are already available at its website, imny.com and in select stores.
In a release, the company announced that the sauces are “the culmination of Executive Chef, Michele Mazza's expertise and passion for creating exceptional Italian cuisine.” On his website, Mazza, a native of Southern Italy, says that he has been with Il Mulino for nearly two decades.
The move into the specialty foods market comes as several New York City Italian restaurants have created popular offshoot brands selling pasta, sauces, and other products. Carbone, the Italian-American restaurant that has become a juggernaut with locations from Miami to Las Vegas to Dubai, sells its line of jarred sauces in supermarkets nationwide, and the famed Harlem institution Rao’s recently sold its line of sauces as part of a $2.7 billion acquisition by Campbell Soup Co.
