Crostino Milanese, an egg dish with Parmesan cheese and tomatoes, will be on the menu at the revamped Regency. (Anne Wermiel/NY Post)
Restaurateurs Gherardo Guarducci (far left) and Dimitri Pauli (above right) are taking over the power breakfast from longtime host Jon Tisch (center). (Jesse Scaturro)
Most mornings, you will find Gherardo Guarducci, a suave, 6-foot-4, blue-eyed stunner, working the Madison Avenue or Greenwich Village outposts of Sant Ambroeus with ease.
Wearing an impeccable Tom Ford suit sans tie, the 46-year-old Tuscan native tends to Upper East Side society ladies, art-world powerhouses such as Larry Gagosian and publishing heavyweights like Anna Wintour with a relaxed charm not lost on the crowd.
At lunch at Casa Lever in Midtown East — another of his restaurants — it’s much the same, with the likes of Bill Clinton, Arianna Huffington and Ivanka Trump nibbling on Dover sole and Santa Barbara sea urchin surrounded by Warhol paintings and chandeliers.
“Our clientele comes from the art world, Hollywood, advertising, publishing, banking, hedge funds, real estate and government,” says Guarducci.
Together with his partner Dimitri Pauli, 49, the pair of dashing Italians are the city’s newest gatekeepers of Manhattan’s high-powered elite — and giving the likes of the Four Seasons’ Julian Niccolini and Alex von Bidder a run for their money.
Earlier this month, it was announced that Guarducci and Pauli would be taking over the legendary power breakfast at the Loews Regency hotel from owner Jonathan Tisch when the hotel reopens in November.
They’ve also been talking with mega-art-dealer Gagosian about opening a cafe, recently signed a lease on the old Caffe Falai space in SoHo and have plans to open another branch of Sant Ambroeus in the Regency, in addition to operating the breakfast and the hotel’s main restaurant.
The darling duo first began working together in 2003, when Pauli, a Swiss-born Italian, whose family brought the Milanese restaurant Sant Ambroeus over from Italy in 1983, hooked up with Guarducci, a regular at the Sant Ambroeus in Southampton, who had started his own chain of Italian coffee shops in the US.
Guarducci, who has been in New York since 1989, credits their success to hard work — and their warm Mediterranean hospitality.
“Italians are very creative people,” he says. “We manage to juggle formality and spontaneity.’’
It’s an approach that certainly seems to be working, as their boldface patrons and growing empire would attest.
Still, the news of their taking over the Regency’s power breakfast has uptown tongues wagging.
“I was totally floored when I heard the news,’’ says Alexandra Lebenthal, 48, president and CEO of Lebenthal & Company and a power breakfast regular. But, the Upper East Sider says, “As long as they continue to have fresh mango in the morning, I will love it.’’
Others were less surprised and note there’s already plenty of clientele crossover between those who frequent the Regency and Guarducci and Pauli’s hot spots.
“This is a great combo of two well-known brands,” says Bill Rudin, the 57-year-old CEO of Rudin Management Co. and a regular at both the Regency and the Sant Ambroeus near his Upper East Side home.
John Meadow, a 32-year-old Regency regular and the co-owner of LDV Hospitality, agrees. “This is a win-win,” he says. “It gives Gherardo and Dimitri a high-profile New York landmark, and the Regency a team that could propel the power breakfast for another 30 years.’’
It was worry about the future of the power breakfast that led Tisch to bring in new operators.
“Today is a very different New York City than it was when my father and uncle built the Regency 50 years ago,’’ laments the elegant 59-year-old. “It’s more competitive and sophisticated, and we want to preserve the power breakfast.”
Tisch, who has been coming to Guarducci and Pauli’s restaurants for years, says he met with other high-powered restaurateurs, but settled on the Italian duo because of their experience as well as their following.
“We spoke with four or five other major people, but we felt that Gherardo and Dimitri come from their own family history and have 30 years in the business.”
He also praises the Italians’ skills with baked goods. “People love our bacon and bagels,” he says. “But they have a commissary and make their own baked goods. I love their multigrain bread!’
The team is quick to note that they’ll bring their own style to the breakfast while maintaining a reverence for all that Tisch has done.
“What Jon says goes . . . we are very well-versed in the legend of the power breakfast, but we will enhance it with our own culture,” says Guarducci, adding that he, Pauli and Tisch have been e-mailing each other in the middle of the night with ideas.
“We don’t want to re-invent the pot of coffee,” says Guarducci. “We are just going to have better coffee in that pot.”