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Night 6: Buon Giorno
When the sun breaks through the next day, I decide to
celebrate by taking my son to have pasta at Buon Giorno.
Angela and Arcide Ginepro started their restaurant in
downtown Bethesda in 1975, when it was one of only four
or five restaurants in town. Today, the crowds and crush
on Bethesda and Woodmont Avenues attest to the fact
that, per capita, Bethesda has among the most restaurants
in the country, second only to San Francisco.
But the streets surrounding Buon Giorno on Norfolk
Avenue on the "other side" of town, seem from
that earlier time. They are filled with the kind of
businesses people used to need — repair shops,
cleaners — establishments that predate our throwaway
culture. Buon Giorno is like that as well, not dowdy
or depressing at all — just a holdover from an
earlier, more sedate age when you dressed nicely for
dinner, held civil conversation and ate carefully prepared,
fresh and elegant food. There is not a shred of a trend
on the menu. No one has styled the place with rustic
fake Italiana. The crowd is mature, the flowers are
fresh, the music is subtle, and our waiter has an enchantingly
trimmed and waxed moustache whose ends curl up and make
my son and me feel giddy.
Like most of the staff, Carlo has been on board nearly
since the beginning. According to Daniela Nicotra, the
Ginepro's daughter, the kitchen has been manned by the
same staff since just after Watergate. Making a little
culinary history themselves in those days, the Ginepros
introduced pesto to the Capital of the Free World, and,
says Daniela, mussels too. Her parents live nearby and
still walk to work, where Mr. Ginepro makes all the
pasta by hand. Although he doesn't like to say so, he
is 90. He would also be grateful if I would say that
Buon Giorno, thank you, is not open for lunch.
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