Della Puppa is Italian, and many of his patrons share his European roots. "American rich, you are a CEO, you have no time," he said. "Italian rich, they live like rich people. They go to work at noon. They enjoy life."
Via Quadronno is host to a rotating assortment of diplomats, guests of the nearby Carlyle hotel, private-school moms, members of the Agnelli family and the occasional teenager possessed of a black American Express card.
Yet Sue Ventura and her husband, Lou, are also regulars. Ventura, a student at the New York School of Interior Design, did not enter the world of the US$4 afternoon cappuccino until middle age. In 1994 -- in honor of her 40th birthday -- she quit her job as a bond trader after 15 years on Wall Street. "My liberation," she said, beaming. Her husband still works as a senior managing director at Bear Stearns, though he joins her there after work most days.
Now, instead of eating at her desk, she practices Italian with the staff at Via Quadronno. But stepping out of a life of hyperproductivity, she says, where one's value is as quantifiable as one's trading powers, was as unsettling as it was glorious.
She has reconciled herself to slowness. "Life is fleeting," she said. "You've got to step back every once in a while."
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