In the middle of a quiet Elizabeth Street block, above an unmistakably pink subterranean stone entryway with flower boxes of mottled caladium leaves, a neon starburst with a smiley face announces a new arrival: the full-service "healthy Italian" restaurant Pietro Nolita.

Its owners, Pietro Quaglia and Mina Soliman, met in 2003, when Soliman was working at Indochine as a maître d'. At the time, Quaglia was interning at Dolce and Gabbana, whose team held ritual Friday night dinners there. The pair didn't talk restaurants until September of last year, when Quaglia was alerted the space was available by the restaurateur and designer Serge Becker — whose wife happens to be Soliman's sister. The longtime friends becomes business partners soon thereafter.

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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/