Berty Richter awoke in Israel on Friday to a flurry of texts. “Congratulations,” each one said.
Richter’s Mediterranean grill house at Pearl, Ladino, had been named Restaurant of the Year on Thursday at the annual CultureMap San Antonio Tastemaker Awards.
“That’s amazing,” Richter said by phone from Tel Aviv. “Tomorrow we’re celebrating Passover. And it’s the first Passover in 15 years that I get to be with my family.”
Richter shared news of the award with his mother, Luna Richter, his inspiration and kitchen mentor.
“She was laughing and crying,” Berty said. “She felt so proud. Ladino is the culture I grew up in. Our family is Ladino and we spoke Ladino. We are Sephardic Jewish with all the food and songs and traditions that come with it. When we opened Ladino, it was a lifelong dream to pay homage to the family and culture.”
Mother and son are close. Berty spent hours in the kitchen with his mother and his grandmother, learning to cook as a child in their home near Tel Aviv. Hours turned into days, months into years and, finally, a journey across the Atlantic.
“I left Israel to go to New York and work on my career of becoming a chef,” Richter said. “Because the culinary scene in Israel was not as developed as it is now.”
In May 2001, Richter took a job as a line cook at Tribeca Grill, a recently closed establishment in Manhattan co-owned by actor Robert DeNiro. In late August, he attended a birthday lunch for his girlfriend at Windows of the World, a renowned restaurant on the 106th and 107th floors of the World Trade Center’s North Tower.
Richter told the server he worked eight blocks away at Tribeca. The server introduced Richter to the chef, who told him to apply for a job. The restaurant needed kitchen help. A job was all but assured if he called the human resources department. Richter never called. Three weeks later, Windows of the World staff held a meeting on the morning of Sept. 11. The one person to miss the meeting was the chef who asked Richter to apply, Michael Lomonaco.
“He was picking up glasses from an optometrist on the second floor when the plane hit that building,” Richter said. “He was the only one from the restaurant to survive.”
Tribeca fed rescue crews following the World Trade Center’s collapse. Later, Richter met Lomonaco at a 9-11 benefit. “He said, ‘Hey, you were the one I was going to hire,’” Richter recalled. “‘I’m glad you never called HR.’”
Windows represented a great opportunity, Tribeca a challenging grind. Berty chose to stay put and his persistence was rewarded. “The next year and a half at Tribeca was amazing,” he said.
Lomonaco went on to open the acclaimed Porter House Bar & Grill, write a cookbook and host shows on the Discovery Channel and Food Network. Richter spent 15 years in New York, then decided to move.
A song from his younger days in Israel registered. One lyric from Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen) struck a chord: “Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard.”
Now married, Richter and his wife relocated to Austin and opened a food truck. He later moved to San Antonio and opened Ladino, which featured the Jewish-Balkin cuisine of his youth. In 2024, Ladino received a Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand.
From the Michelin guide: “With an expansive terrace seating overlooking a verdant courtyard, the kitchen delivers creative, boldly seasoned dishes from across the Mediterranean. A wood-burning oven cranks out hot rounds of sourdough pita to pair with the likes of fire-roasted corn with labneh and sivri pepper or summer squash with grape-leaf chermoula.”
With Richter unable to attend Thursday’s latest recognition, the Ladino staff celebrated on his behalf.
“I’ve been incredibly fortunate to work alongside Berty for over four years now,” said corporate chef Danny Parada. “There’s a joy and warmth he brings to the restaurant that’s truly special. It’s contagious. The way he pours his heart into every dish, creating bold, yet beautifully simple flavors is what makes his cooking unforgettable. He doesn’t just make food. He tells a story with it.”
One item on Ladino’s menu, agristada de pishkado, tells a story. Derived from a Sephardic recipe, the fish cooked in lemon egg sauce was prepared by Richter’s grandmother twice a year, on Rosh Hashanah and Passover.
“Our family used to wait for the holidays just to eat this fish,” Richter said.
Only one person in the family knows how to make agristada de pishkado the way grandmother used to. So one day after the Tastemaker Awards, Richter felt a surge of anticipation. It had fallen on him to prepare the Passover meal.
