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"Take me if you can" may seem like an unusual tattoo for a 49-year-old former Wall Street banker, but it makes sense when Luca Longobardi explains it.
Of his most obvious ink, he told me: "I lose a lot of people as I run through my life, people who love me and I love, friends, wife, girlfriend, anything. It's hard to be after me because I think in front of me, and people simply do not follow me. "
And his life and career are certainly difficult to follow.
Now the owner of the refined 108 Garage, the story of Longobardi, born in Italy, left Naples in December 1991 at the age of 21 and moved to the United States with only $ 500 (data from the mother), but with great ambitions to become a banker.
"My dream was to work on Wall Street," he said, when we met at Shoreditch House in October.
A misunderstanding with family friends left him without a place to stay when he landed in New York, and he began to sleep in the Grand Central station.
"I moved to a hostel, then to a hotel lobby (the Waldorf Astoria), then back to Grand Central for almost two weeks," he said.
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Longobardi had brought with him a bag full of shirts from Italy, with the aim of selling them to department stores, but he started selling some of the champions outside of Grand Central to make money to survive.
"One day a man [aged] About 70 passed my small bag with the shirt on top. He takes one and says, "Where did you get these shirts?" The stranger told Longobardi that he owned a shop on Madison Avenue and gave him his business card.
It was 1992. The name of that man was Fred Pressman, the owner of Barneys New York, and he agreed to let Luca organize a meeting to show his buyers the shirts.
"After a few weeks I had my first orders at Barneys in New York, and at that moment I started my little shirt business in New York," he said, adding that he continued to sell them to Bergdorf Goodman and Saks Fifth Avenue.
"But actually I wanted to work on Wall Street, that was my main purpose," he said, and another casual meeting brought him there.
During the period when he crashed on the sofas of the Waldorf Astoria, he was approached by a goalkeeper named Ivan who eventually became a friend.
With Ivan's help, he found himself in a small apartment in the Bronx and worked as a promoter at the party venue that once housed Studio 54.
"Has been [also a] great promoter in New York, he was organizing parties and I would be at the door, "he said.
Become a wolf of Wall Street
One night, at the beginning of 1994, he claims to have met the "Wolf of Wall Street" himself Jordan Belfort at a party – and the next thing he knew, he says he was interviewing for a job at the office of Wall Street of his company VTR Capital.
"He was a spinoff from [Stratton Oakmont], it was the legitimate business, "he said." I went there and they liked me and I was hired and I started my career on Wall Street as a cold caller. "
In 1998, VTR Capital was accused of defrauding investors – although it had worked there from 1994 to 1996, Longobardi had already gone ahead, and claims not to be aware of fraudulent activities that took place during its stay in the company.
In his book "Branded the Mafia & # 39; s Banker", he writes: "After a year and some cocktail parties, where some Stratton partners and even Jordan Belfort appeared, I started to wonder if VTR was a real new adventure or just a spin – Stratton Oakmont off … Even today I could not say exactly what was going on, because they seemed to have a finger in a million cakes. "
In July 1996 he became a junior broker for a more "institutional" bank, Ladenburg Thalmann, where he remained until September 1999.
"I built my business and I made an offer to buy the bank," he said. "The offer was not successful, so I left that bank and built my investment banking business, State Capital."
He opened global offices in Italy, Miami, New York and Brazil – and he also married Miss Brazil 1996 and had two daughters.
But everything collapsed in 2010 when Longobardi was arrested with the false suspicion of being a banker of the mafia and spent 30 days in a maximum security prison in Brazil.
"The banker of the mafia"
Longobardi says he was unjustly placed on Interpol's "Most Wanted" list due to a transaction by an Italian bank that invested in its venture capital fund – a bank that was subsequently tried in Italy for fraudulent bankruptcy, money laundering and conspiracy.
The surname of Longobardi was similar to that of an Italian mafia clan, and was quickly accused of money laundering for the Italian mafia by the police, and was branded by the international media as "The Mafia & # 39; s Banker".
"I was wrongly tried by the Italian authorities, I was wrongly included in the Interpol list, I was wrongly arrested and detained by the American consulate in Brazil, I was wrongly arrested, [and] he spent 30 days in a maximum security prison in Brazil, "he told BI.
Although he was eventually freed and released from all charges after 30 days, he said he spent time trying to understand the lives of his comrades and also identified some, including a "kingpin" of Narco's traffic and the private pilot of Pablo Escobar.
"I entered as a banker of the mafia and I earned their respect [through] the name is ", he said." People invited me to sit at their table to eat. "
Once released, he told Business Insider he had sued prosecutors and the media who had labeled him "the banker of the mafia" and claims to have won.
However, the experience changed the way people saw it.
"In reality, they were all transactional relationships, and I decided that the banking world was no longer the place for me," he said. "My life has completely changed from that moment on."
Finding its roots through food
He returned to Italy and, with a change of pace, founded a small concept of sandwich called Sfilatino.
"[The sandwiches were] packaged almost in an iPhone package, and the recipe was made by two Michelin-starred chefs, "he said. It was a Michelin sandwich sold for € 6.50 ".
He added that he was born in an environment "in which food was an important part of an Italian family.
"My father had a way of cooking and my mother had a different way, between what is traditional and what is modern," he said. "Getting back to food makes you go back to that origin."
It did not take long for the rest of the world to notice his sandwich concept, and the Selfridges department store in London was asked to open a pop-up.
Read more:19 Michelin-starred restaurants in New York where you can have lunch for $ 50 or less
His marriage was unfortunately not able to resist the instability of the years following his arrest and he separated from his wife.
His two daughters, now 13 and 17, remained in Italy while he moved to London to launch the Selfridges pop-up for six months before completely selling the business.
"I spent six months traveling all over Italy in a small VW bus to understand the culture of food," he said. "I completely discovered the simplicity of people and food … I realized that this was my way to reconnect with who I was when I left Italy."
A refined chef cooking on Gumtree
He wanted to open a restaurant in London and, fortunately, he found his chef, Chris Denney, on the Gumtree classifieds site.
The duo managed to turn a garage in Notting Hill in West London into a fine restaurant in January 2017 and found himself on the fast road to success.
"After less than a year, I found myself pursuing the big goal, the great ambition, creating something that could be more impact than a small restaurant in Notting Hill, and being overrun with success," said Longobardi. "In four months we were completely full [the next] six months and the most acclaimed restaurant in London. "
In 2018, Garage won the award for Tatler's best restaurant of the year and received rave reviews from the likes of Giles Coren and Fay Maschler.
In October 2017, Denney and Longbardi opened a second location, Southam Street, and are currently working on a book of life stories and recipes together.
It is not even the first time that Longobardi delights in the world of writing.
"I wrote a book in 2015 called" Branded "The Mafia & # 39; s Banker, & # 39; & # 39; & # 39; & # 39; said. At that time I received an offer to make a film [based on the book], of which I was not of the right mood, they wanted me to become the banker of the mafia, which I was not, and I would become a character for Hollywood. For no money in the world. "
However, he created a trailer to promote the launch of his book – and won Best Trailer / Promo at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival Awards.
A club of private members for blockchain
His most ambitious and complex project, however, is Home Noir – a predominantly private digital community focused on blockchain that also includes the opening of physical clubs in New York, London, Shanghai, Seoul, Paris, Berlin, Tel Aviv, Tokyo, Barcelona, Beijing and Moscow.
The company plans to be a hub for those in the blockchain industry through a digital platform, experiences and spaces, but it will also encourage innovation and investment.
"Cryptocurrency is just a way to feed, monetize and reward the community and a way to pay for services or experiences with those tokens," explained Longobardi, adding that tokens will be called token Noir.
The network of members of Home Noir will be launched this year and the company is currently looking for a home for its first club of physical members.
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The fees for the members have yet to be confirmed, but there will be the possibility to get daily, weekly or monthly passes or to purchase an annual subscription.
"The correct approach to blockchain, even if it is transactional, the whole philosophy brings transparency in a collaborative environment, where the more you give the greatest reward you get," said Longobardi.
"You will see a community of interest collaborate on topics, sharing knowledge, learning experiences, fun experiences and everyone will give and will be rewarded for their actions – so you will enrich others and enrich yourself".
One of the first to adopt the cryptocurrency – Longobardi even claims to have paid the lawyer who has freed himself from the prison using money transferred from his digital wallet – he added that the inspiration for the project derives from his own experience and realizing that his life could have been very different if Blockchain was there in 2010 when he was arrested.
"I live the inefficiency of a world without blockchain, and I live it the hard way," he said. "On blockchain, prosecutors would have seen that I was not laundering money with anyone else, I was just accepting money based on a bank or banking transaction … Interpol would have [had] access to the blockchain and in the end would have seen that it was a mistake. "
Despite the scope of the project, Home Noir does not mean that Longobardi is moving away from the world of food in which it has been so successful.
"I love food because it's a passion, I love research and I will never stop traveling with my chef in Italy to discover things … This is the most relaxing part of my life, but I see myself completely dedicated to [Home Noir] and putting the flag in places all over the world. "
