One of Brooklyn’s most famous pizza man Created a miracle for a needy customer.
When Mark Iacono, owner of Wood-fired pizza joint Lusali At Carroll Gardens, he was devastated when he learned that his mentor and friend, Theo Alano, 54, was suffering from end-stage kidney disease.
Desperate to help in some way, Iacono shared a post with his 245,000 Instagram followers in December 2023, writing that creative director Alano was looking for a kidney donor.
In May 2022, Alano contracted severe COVID-19 on a flight from Ireland to New York City.
Then aged 52, he was healthy at first, but he went rapidly downwards and came close to death.
Doctors learned that his kidney disease was end stage and he would have to start dialysis.
But, before he could do so, his health deteriorated rapidly. In early 2023, two friends took him to the emergency room when he became bedridden, weak and his skin pale.
Doctors at Lenox Hill Hospital said his kidneys had failed.
“It was Ash Wednesday, and the nurse pulled my friends aside and said, ‘Your friend probably has an hour to live,'” Elano recalled.
He survived, thanks to dialysis – a treatment that removes fluid and waste from the blood – and began regular sessions. Southern Manhattan Dialysis Center In Greenwich Village.
The treatment was tiring.
Three mornings a week, he would wake up at 3:30 for a four-hour session.
Long-term kidney donation was their best hope, but there was a 10-year waiting list for kidney donation through the New York State Donate Life Registry.
He started praying for a miracle — and shared a plea for a potential living donor with his 1,659 followers on Instagram.
“If I’ve ever impacted your life or changed your life in any way – I challenge you to pay it forward and consider donating a kidney to me,” Elano wrote in the post.
He even got stars like Jessica Alba, whom he met through a mutual friend, to repost his petition.
But it was beloved Pizzaiolo Iacono whose call to action helped save his life.
Upper West Sider Rusty Rastello, 42, a longtime Lucali fan, saw Iacono’s post.
This resonated deeply with Rastello, a professor at the Culinary Institute of America and a sommelier who previously worked at Eleven Madison Park and Gramercy Tavern.
His uncle, who was like a father to him, had donated a kidney to his brother 32 years ago. He began researching kidney transplant procedures and reached out to Alano.
“I saw the post and it brought back memories,” Rastello said.
In December 2023, the two met over coffee in Hell’s Kitchen and instantly connected.
“It felt like I’d known him for years,” Elano recalled.
Rastello underwent several blood and urine tests and in May 2024, he was found to be a good fit for Alano.
She also underwent a standard physical and chest X-ray to make sure she was healthy enough to be a living donor.
On August 7, 2024, both men checked into Columbia Presbyterian’s Milstein Hospital in Washington Heights.
Rastello’s surgery – a minimally invasive procedure that requires only a few small incisions in the abdomen – took only three hours. Elano’s more complex operation took six.
Rastello remembers being emotional when his fiancée told him that his kidney had been successfully transplanted to Iacono.
“I just started crying. I still don’t know what that feeling was – it was somewhere between relief and excitement,” he said, choking back tears. “At this point we had become friends and there was huge gratitude that we both came through this. When I saw him, there was light in his eyes, there was color on his face. It was remarkable how quickly he recovered.”
After spending two nights in the hospital, Rastello went home, Iacono stayed four nights.
Two months after the life-saving transplant surgery, both Rastello and Alano say they are feeling great.
Last month, the two celebrated their remarkable journey and new-found friendship over wood-fired pie at Lucali.
“He did something very selfless,” Alano said. “I don’t know how I got so lucky.”
For more information about living kidney donation, visit the National Kidney Foundation website kidney.org,
