Lucali pizza owner finds dying customer a kidney donor match

One of Brooklyn’s most famous pizza men cooked up a miracle for a customer in need.

When Mark Iacono, owner of wood-fired-pizza institution Lucali in Carroll Gardens, learned his patron and friend Theo Alano, 54, was suffering from end-stage kidney disease, he was devastated.

Desperate to help in some way, Iacono shared a post with his 245,000 Instagram followers in December of 2023, writing that Alano, a creative director, was looking for a kidney donor.

In May 2022, Alano contracted a severe case of COVID-19 on a flight home from Ireland to New York City.

Then 52-years-old, he had previously been healthy, but he went downhill quickly, nearing death.

Doctors discovered he had end-stage kidney disease and would have to start dialysis.

But, before he could do that, his health worsened quickly. In early 2023, two friends rushed him to the emergency room after he grew bed-ridden and frail and his skin turned yellow.

Doctors at Lenox Hill Hospital said he was in kidney failure.

“It was Ash Wednesday, and the nurse pulled my friends aside and said, ‘your friend probably has an hour to live,’” Alano recalled.

He survived, thanks to dialysis — a treatment that removes fluid and waste from the blood — and began regular sessions at the Southern Manhattan Dialysis Center in Greenwich Village.

The treatment was exhausting.

Three mornings a week, he’d wake up at 3:30 a.m. for four-hour sessions.

A kidney donation was his best hope for the long term, but there was a 10-year waitlist for a donor through the New York State Donate Life Registry.

He began praying for a miracle — and shared a plea for a potential living donor with his 1,659 followers on Instagram.

“If I have ever impacted your life or if anyone has changed your life in some form –  I challenge you to pay it forward and consider donating a kidney to me,” Alano wrote in the post.

He even got stars like Jessica Alba, whom he had met through a mutual friend, to repost his plea.

But it was beloved pizzaiolo Iacono whose call to action helped save his life.

Upper West Sider Rusty Rastello, 42, a longtime Lucali fan, happened to see Iacono’s post. 

It deeply resonated with Rastello, a professor at the Culinary Institute of America and a sommelier who formerly worked at Eleven Madison Park and Gramercy Tavern.

His uncle, a father figure to him, had donated a kidney to his brother 32 years earlier. He began researching kidney transplants procedures and reached out to Alano. 

“I saw the post and it triggered a memory,” Rastello said.

In December 2023, the duo met over coffee in Hell’s Kitchen and instantly connected.

“It was as if I had known him for years,” recalled Alano. 

Rastello underwent a series of blood and urine tests, and, in May 2024, he was found to be a perfect match for Alano.

He also had to undergo a standard physical and chest X-ray to be sure he was healthy enough to be a living donor.

On August 7, 2024, both men checked into the Columbia Presbyterian’s Milstein Hospital in Washington Heights.

Rastello’s surgery — a minimally invasive procedure that required just a few small incisions in the abdomen — took just three hours. Alano’s more complicated operation took six.

Rastello recalled getting emotional when his fiance told him his kidney had been successfully transplanted to Iacono.

“I just started crying. I still don’t even know what that emotion was – it was somewhere between relief and excitement,” he said, holding back tears. “We had become friends at this point and it was an immense amount of gratitude that we both came through it. When I saw him — light had come to his eyes, color to his face. It was remarkable how quickly he recovered.”

Rastello went home after two nights in the hospital, Iacono stayed for four nights.

Two months after the life-saving transplant surgery, both Rastello and Alano say they feel great.

Last month, the duo celebrated their remarkable journey and new-found friendship over a wood-fired pie at Lucali. 

“He did something so selfless,” Alano said. “I don’t know how I got to be so lucky.” 

For more information about living kidney donation, visit the National Kidney Foundation’s website at Kidney.org.