Il Mulino alumni open high-end Italian restaurant in LIC

Aug. 20, 2014 By Christian Murray

Two long-serving chefs from the up-market Manhattan restaurant Il Mulino opened an Italian restaurant in Long Island City last week.

The restaurant, called Il Falco, opened at 21-50 44th Drive and serves high-end northern and southern Italian food. It offers all the traditional Italian dishes from pasta to chicken sautéed in a variety of sauces.

The chef is Segundo Tinishanay, who rose through the ranks to become the chef at Il Mulino, where he served U.S. presidents and captains of industry—such as Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Bill Gates.

Tinishanay, an immigrant from Ecuador, started working at Il Mulino in 1986 in the salad station, before being promoted to the pasta station, then the grill and ultimately the chef. He was just 17 when he started.

“I didn’t feel ready to be chef at the time…but my boss Gino Masci said he would help me,” Tinishanay said. “He taught me everything about the kitchen… and I worked very hard and learned so much.”

Tinishanay later went on to train the kitchen staff at other Il Mulino restaurants that subsequently opened in Miami and Las Vegas.

Tinishanay hired Bolivar Perez, his brother-in-law, more than 20 years ago as a line cook. Perez, who is a partner at Il Falco, worked his way up to become sous-chef.

Today, both men have hired their adult children to work at Il Falco—with Tinishanay’s daughter as cashier and son a bus boy—while Perez’ daughter is the host and a son as bus boy.

Meanwhile, Perez’ cousin Albino Sanchez, who worked at Il Mulino for 16 years, is a waiter at Il Falco.

Tinishanay, Perez and Sanchez all come from a small town in Ecuador called Chunchi, which has a population of less than 10,000 people.

“We have all worked in the restaurant business a long time–since we were very young,” Tinishanay said. “We wanted to open a place of our own and we feel Long Island City is a good place to do that…with all these big buildings.”