Restaurant Man

Joe Bastianich’s Restaurant Man is a manifesto on business, the business of food, the business of people, New York business and the business of wine, all colored with red, white and green; the Italian flag, wines and money. Vehemently and aggressively Italian, this restaurant man makes no apologies for being a real bastard about making people cry tears of joy and tears of profound misery. But he’ll shake your hand and make you smile about dropping a cool grand for dinner for you and the family. Restaurant Man is as much about ego as it is a primer for doing the math of running a successful restaurant, far and away from the “greasy bag of deep-fired easy.” More access to information about running a sound operation, you need not. He gives you the percentages on the opening page.Any book that peers out from the inside of a restaurant’s imaginary façade, be it the dungeon-esque interworkings of the kitchen, the song and dance of the front of the house, the coke-snorting owners, cash-skimming managers, or any combination thereof, seems to capture a view that is tumultuous, sexy, horrid, tawdry and just a bit maddening… in a good way. Any non-PG take on what happens along restaurant row is automatically compared with Anthony Bourdain’s now-legendary look at the “culinary underbelly.” Yes, there are frank diatribes on the respectability and pay of each member of the team; the vixen-like appeal of the coat girl to the absurd role of a manager to the maître d’ that actually runs the place. But, Restaurant Man really is all about the business. Restaurant Man is more about nonfiction then it is about superheros.Sure, Bourdain captures the sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll of hardened deranged cooks. And Steve Dublanica does the same with Waiter Rant, pervasive with tales of criminal managers and “crop dusting” through the dining room to intoxicate the rude dinner guest with noxious derrière perfume. Bastianich does not use the same formula. The appeal of Restaurant Man is in his original voice. He enjoys wine and pours enough of it in Restaurant Man that you crave Barolo and Brunello while getting drunk on his words that will shake you like a monkey.“We heard a lot of noise when Babbo first opened about our chutzpah in putting out a menu that didn’t seem to have one single Italian on it, no warhorses, no greatest hits – not to mention our taste in loud rock ‘n roll- but we stuck to what we believed in, and in fact about 70 percent of the menu has been solid since day one: We always have pig’s feet, tripe and testa, as well as a barbecued squab, pork chop that takes longer to eat than a Dave Matthews concert runs, and fresh branzino cooked with ingredients and flavors that my father even heard of, plus the famous two-minute Calamari Sicilian Lifeguard Style, and a mess of completely imaginative and sexy pastas including the papparadelle Bolognese, which sounds simple enough but blows everyone’s mind. You think you’ve had Bolognese, and then you try Mario’s and you just want to weep at the tragedy your life has been.”Restaurant Man has some captivating writing. Bastianich draws you in with just enough familial histrionics without dowsing you in stories of famous mom. There is very little geeking out about having a mom who is to Italian cooking what Julia is for French fare. The same goes for his partnership with Mario Batali. There is just enough orange-clog talk to color his story without making Restaurant Man all about other people.I do not not want to dine in Bastianich’s places after reading Restaurant Man. Instead, I feel at ease giving him $250 for dinner. He wants to “overdeliver, exceed expectations, every day.” He brings a voice to the menu, to the experience of dining, to paying the price of a night of living high. “What the hell… I [know] the power of good food. I [know] that it can could turn dark into light…”

Fun and informative read. Lots of fun facts and anecdotes. The book reads and feels authentic. Highly recommended for people considering going into the restaurant business.

Joe Bastianich has written a fascinating memoir of his life and how he became the restaurant tycoon that he is today. He tells how he started out a poor Italian boy in Brooklyn working long hours in his parent's restaurant. Interestingly, his family(including his mother Lidia, now an icon), slept in their car while traveling the Italian countryside visiting restaurants and wineries getting an education enough to eventually open the great restaurant Felidia in Manhattan. The book gets really interesting when Joe discusses how he opened each individual restaurant. Each one is unique for a different reason culminating in the eating emporium, Eataly.Also fascinating is Joe's take on wine which is an intricate part of his upbringing. He teaches the reader alot about the business of wine as well as the restaurants. Some things I will take away from this book besides how difficult it is to open a reastarant) is that the more a person drinks and learns about wine, the more they will move towards appreciating mostly burgundy and champaigne. Another thing I learned is that the reason I can't get a prime time reservation at Babbos is because Joe and Mario reserve it for the people they know. I can only eat at 5:30 and 10:30. Yet, if you eat at 10:30 and are one of the last three tables left, you will be treated special as those that eat that late are customers they can use. The negatives include the extreme use of the "f-bomb". I am not sensitive about language and have been known to use that word a bit myself but this is above and beyond that. I met Joe and he never uttered a profanity. Wierd! Also he is a bit too conceited. Yes, he changed some things in the restaurant industry but he could be a bit more humble about it. Overall, the book is quite educational, well written, fascinating and totally entertaining.

I might have given his memoir 5 Stars had I not found myself highlighting & then annotating in both English & Italian as I read. The book is heavily 'padded' with a very liberal sprinkling of the F-word. I say 'padded' because it would be a lot shorter if its use as an adjective, adverb, verb, noun were edited out. I have no objection to the use - I can express myself in both English & Italian with fluency if I want to - but after a bit it's tiresome & probably will be off-putting to some readers. I actually found myself anticipating its use beforehand, which says something.He also adopts a Damon Runyon-esque Forties & Fifties use of descriptive terms like 'broads' when referring to women - plenty of misogyny abounds throughout which is rather odd, given his age & the fact that this stuff finally went out in the Seventies - not counting revivals of 'Guys and Dolls.' Definitely off-putting.I found myself questioning certain assertions regarding Italy & New York pre-Babbo. By now he is a well-known quantity on both sides of the Atlantic thanks to Master Chef, where in Italy he appears in both the American version (he dubs himself) & the Italian one. Sadly, for all his grand pronouncements, he is now flogging an industrial product on Italian TV & finding it buonissimo. He's not the only one, I have to admit, since another Italian Master Chef chef is doing likewise, to everyone's consternation.For those interested in a personal history of Italian restaurants in New York & the rise of the Mario-Joe empire, this is worth a read. I think he could have done a much better job or could have benefitted by better editing - I noted the entire book for the most part lacked dates, which I found annoying.

I loved this. It is almost a hybrid of a book on how to run a restaurant, and an autobiography of a successful restauranteur. This is the type of book you read more than once, especially if you are in the hospitality business.

Joe does such a good job telling his story on such a personal level, it’s like his right next to you. Very Insightful, full of nuggets every restaurateur must know.He gives such great insights into the operation of a restaurant, it’s dynamics and what truly makes a restaurant successful.Well worth the read especially if you are aspiring to enter the restaurant business.

Everybody knows this book so there isn't much that I can say that hasn't been said a million yimes before. Its joe bastianich, its resteraunts, its cooking, its resteraunt man. A must own for a book reader

It is written with the frankness of people in this profession and a great sense of humour. Having been in this profession, I know every bit he mentions to be true.His chapter on wines even moved me.The book entertained and taught me so much, I felt the need to tell Mr. Bastianich how good his book was!

Great read really enjoyed it.