This hidden treasure showed itself with an anonymous and discreet faÁade on straight and sunny West Broadway. This new location made the customer, the metropolitan pioneer looking for the thrill of discovery, enter the unknown, discover the hidden life of this ëcasketí. This marked the beginning of I Tre Merli and its myth. A meeting place for the chosen few, for a group of wine-lovers contended with a discreet half-light. Many celebrities belonged to this narrow circle of customers who lokoed for that privacy so difficult to be found in New York. This went on for some years. As success grew, privacy was replaced by real entertainment, by the delight of being together, by the need of seeing, of being seen, of doing crazy things while waiting for radiant dawns with good people and good music.

Famous architects redesigned the anonymous faÁade, turning into an attractive portal. Once again a real forerunner in this field, I Tre Merli opened the first outdoor garden-cafÈ with tables and beach umbrellas on SoHoís sidewalk. Its indoor walls, covered with shining bottles, offered the famous range of house wines. I Tre Merli has always been proud of presenting its own-produced and own-bottled wines.

All this meant success which is still going on. In fifteen yearsí activity in New York, the restaurant has become an international reference point for gourmets, wine-lovers and nice people who love the particular thrill of New York lively nights at I Tre Merli.

In the early 80s, after having met and hosted the New York City Ballet on Tour with ëWest Side Storyí at Parco Nervi (a prestigious event for international ballet), I Tre Merli became fascinated with the idea of exporting its concept of catering and ocnology to the USA. From the idea to the reality: in January 1985 I Tre Merli Restaurant and Bar inaugurated in downtown SoHo, New York. At that time, this area was a real example of industrial archaeology, with its characteristic brick buildings, artistic cast-iron facades, granite sidewalks porphyry-paved streets was a busy district during the day but a dark and dangerous area at night.

There were few bars and very few restaurants. Far from imagining the elegant district with art galleries and expensive boutiques SoHo was to become, I Tre Merli was a real forerunner of an era and style. A stately warehouse was chosen as a sear ?? (one of the few in that area full of lofts with high ceilings), the floor was paved with dark Ligurian slate, the internal walls were restored to their original red-brick colour, old sweet-scented wooden racks gathered thousands of wine bottles, thus re-creating the atmosphere and "pathos" of the Romanesque Cathedral; an aesthetic and esoteric temple of wine.

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