Five-thousand, seven-hundred and forty-five miles from Sicily, in Red Lodge, Montana, there’s a little restaurant with a big Italian heart. Piccola Cucina means “little kitchen” in Italian but its presence is anything but small. It has been a main-street staple for the past eight years.
Stepping inside feels like visiting the most welcoming of friends at their Mediterranean villa: soaring ceilings, white interiors with ocean blue accents, and cheerful staff that know locals by name and greet others with “Ciao! Buona sera!”
Piccola Cucina in Red Lodge is one of six restaurants sharing the same name started by owner Philip Guardione, including four locations in New York City and one on the Spanish island of Ibiza in the Mediterranean Sea. Guardione came to love food while watching his Sicilian grandma in the kitchen and learning to cook at her side. After honing his culinary craft across Europe, he moved to New York City and fell in love with the city’s vibrancy. The first Piccola Cucina started as a small restaurant and expanded to include other locations as business grew.
When a New York billionaire asked Guardione to cater one of his parties, he agreed—which led to the opportunity to open a pop-up Piccola Cucina in Red Lodge so that his wealthy client could frequent his favorite NYC restaurant while staying at his Montana ranch. Guardione’s Montana pop-up was a fast success and grew into a reciprocal relationship where feeding the community of Red Lodge was also feeding the soul of the team at the restaurant. So, after his second summer season in Montana, Guardione decided to buy the building and make Piccola Cucina a year-round establishment.
Executive Chef Benedetto “Benny” Bisacquino has been a presence in Red Lodge since the first day Piccola Cucina opened. His story is similar to Guardione’s, which explains their immediate connection. He was raised in Palermo, Sicily, but left home at 14 years old. “I wanted independence,” he says, adding that cooking around the world brought him that freedom. He trained in Europe and Egypt, and eventually settled in New York City before making his way out West.
Bisacquino remembers flying into Montana on a cold February evening. “I got into Red Lodge at 6 p.m. and there was no one around,” he says. “It was crazy and such a shock from New York.”
Now in his 12th year working with Guardione and the Piccola Cucina Group, Bisacquino says he’s found camaraderie. “I wouldn’t be a chef if it wasn’t for this company. Good people make all the difference. This is not a job, it’s family.”
The staff’s close relationship goes a long way toward creating a comfortable environment for dinner guests, and Bisacquino says he wants diners to feel like they are being welcomed into a family.
He adds that Red Lodge has similarly welcomed him into the community. “I live here full time now and built a house,” he says. “There’s a feeling of family, of community. Even the staff that we bring from NYC feel the same way. They love it here. Now six or seven staff members live here full time as well because they feel safe in the quiet town. People are kind here and want to know who we are and know our stories.”
His biological family may be across an ocean in Sicily, but the food Bisacquino grew up with never left him. “The dishes we serve here are like the food I grew up with,” he says. “It’s the flavor, the smell, the taste. You can feel it—from the Italian tomatoes we source, the basil, or the beautiful green pesto we make.” They source as much as they can from Italy to truly showcase the flavors: canned Italian tomatoes, pecorino, parmesan, and olive oil. The pasta is handmade at one of the NYC restaurants and flown to Montana.
“One of the most popular dishes is the cacio e pepe,” Bisacquino says. The dish is prepared table side, with bucatini pasta tossed in a giant wheel of pecorino the size of a car tire. A divot in the center of the cheese wheel (cacio) creates a perfect bowl shape, and as the warm pasta hits the cheese, it begins to form a simple sauce that is studded with pepe—fresh ground pepper. It’s one of several showstoppers: the restaurant finds multiple ways to provide joy and spontaneity throughout the evening including gregarious servers dancing with guests to Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York”; birthday celebrations with an animated “Happy Birthday” song and a procession of staff with cannoli; and Bisacquino himself attending to tables, greeting guests and forming relationships.
“The dishes we serve here are like the food I grew up with. It’s the flavor, the smell, the taste. You can feel it—from the Italian tomatoes we source, the basil, or the beautiful green pesto we make.” —Chef Benedetto Bisacquino
Chef Benedetto “Benny” Bisacquino prepares recipes inspired by his Italian heritage, using authentic ingredients and integrating creative flair, such as the cacio e pepe which is served in a large wheel of pecorino.
It is this relational atmosphere that keeps guests coming back to Piccola Cucina and what drives Bisacquino to create new dishes that introduce unfamiliar flavors and ingredients to the public.
“When I first got here, ingredients like octopus and squid ink were not well known, but now people trust me and I can create specials that they will try,” he says. “It is different from New York in that sense: In the city people are more multicultural, so it is easier to have those unique dishes on the menu.” Trust, he says, has allowed him to continue to create and feel content.
The story of Piccola Cucina really is a story of family, of connections and relationships. Guardione created that feeling with his first restaurant in New York and that same ethos is felt across the country in a little mountain town in Montana.
