Bastianich - Restaurant Man

A PLUME BOOK

RESTAURANT MAN

JOE BASTIANICH opened his first restaurant, Becco, with his mother, Lidia, in 1993. He and partner Mario Batali have since established some of New Yorks most celebrated restaurants, including Babbo, Del Posto, Lupa, Esca, and Otto Enoteca Pizzeria, as well as restaurants in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, and Eataly. He also appears as a judge on Fox TVs MasterChef.

Praise for Restaurant Man

[Restaurant Man is a] rambunctious memoir.... Mr. Bastianich writes in a vigorous, swaggering style... a cross between Anthony Bourdain and Holden Caulfield.

The Wall Street Journal

Enthralling... Funny, often surprising, and, if anything, illuminating.

The New York Observer

A fascinating, brutally candid look at the realities of operating your own eatery.

People

Compulsory reading for anyone who dreams of someday opening an eatery... The lessons [Joe] Bastianich has to offer are important and fundamental.

LATimes.com

[Restaurant Man is] a wild ride that ends with a richer, happier, healthier man amazed at his survival, emotionally reconciled with his past, and committed to nurturing his family and his culinary legacy.

Wine Spectator

Joe Bastianich tells it like it is.... Restaurant Man is a brutally honest account of his rise from self-proclaimed Queens punk to a James Beardwinning restaurateur.... [Restaurant Man] serves as an educationand a warningto anyone who is thinking of entering the restaurant business.

The New York Daily News

Restaurant Man [is] a terrific trench-level primer on the biz.

Anthony Bourdain

[Restaurant Man] is a raw, throbbing nerve of a biography: if [Joe] Bastianich has any intellectual filters, he checks them at the door here, and Restaurant Man is the beter for it.... This is the Some Girls of restaurant memoirs.

WashingtonPost.com

[Restaurant Man] is a combination of homage to food and wine, and tutelage on owning and managing restaurants.... Restaurant Man serves as an education to anyone wanting to enter the restaurant business.

PortlandFoodandDrink.com

[Restaurant Man is a] salty, rollicking memoir.... [Joe Bastianichs] forthrightness about the business nitty-gritty and his own failures and mistakes are bonus takeaways along the utterly readable way.

Publishers Weekly

[Joe Bastianichs] easygoing voice and substantial knowledge of real Italian food (not the spaghetti-and-meatballs kind) will lure booklovers and food lovers alike... Engrossing details of being the front man in a variety of thriving restaurants.

Kirkus Reviews

Joe Bastianich paints a refreshingly honest picture of what it takes for a restaurant to not just create an impeccable dining experience, but also turn a decent profit... An entertaining read, a blend of heartfelt family history, practical advice, and insider stories.

StarChefs.com

One thing is for certain, after reading this book you look at your next restaurant visit in a different light.

Palm Beach Daily News

Bastianichs Restaurant Man rightfully sits alongside Anthony Bourdains seminal Kitchen Confidential, pulling readers into the complex inner workings of the restaurant industry.... Its compulsively readable... Unabashedly dishy.

FoodRepublic.com

A fantastic memoir... Brutally honest, and one of the best memoirs of its kind since Bourdains Kitchen Confidential.

The Book Report

PLUME

Published by the Penguin Group

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New York, New York 10014, USA

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First published in the United States of America by Viking, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2012

First Plume Printing 2013

REGISTERED TRADEMARKMARCA REGISTRADA

Copyright Joseph Bastianich, 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this product may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

Photograph credits: Insert page 4 (bottom), 7 (bottom), 8 (middle and bottom): Photo: Barbara Kaufman; 5 (top three), 6 (all): Photo: Kelly Campbell; 5 (bottom): Photo: Lydia Gould Bessler and Glen Coben; 8 (top): Photo: Evan Sung. Other photographs courtesy of the author.

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGUED THE VIKING EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

Bastianich, Joseph.

Restaurant Man / Joe Bastianich.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-101-58354-8

1. Bastianich, Joseph. 2. RestaurateursUnited StatesBiography. I. Title.

TX910.5.B373A3 2012

647.95092dc23 [B] 2011048874

Penguin is committed to publishing works of quality and integrity.In that spirit, we are proud to offer this book to our readers;however, the story, the experiences, and the wordsare the authors alone.

For Olivia, Miles, and Ethan.
This is your legacy.
Embrace it.

Acknowledgments

Writing a book, much like the journey of a Restaurant Man, is not a solitary venture, and I am indebted and grateful to everyone who has been so supportive and enthusiastic.

Mike Edison was invaluable in helping me get the story onto the page and keeping the energy and spirit cooking over almost three years of working together to make this book a reality. Mike entered the world of the Restaurant Man with a dinner of tripe soup and toxic white wine at the Istria Club in Queens with the original Restaurant Manmy fatherand me, and since then his selflessness and total immersion in the project (not to mention his practically criminal love of food, wine, and Led Zeppelin) have helped me find the confidence in my own voice to write this book without compromise. Mike is a great collaborator, a great writer, and a great friend.

Alessandra Lusardi shared our vision and edited this book with a level of understanding, thoughtfulness, and sensitivity that I have rarely encountered in any business. Her own distinguished Italian restaurant lineage (and love of Led Zeppelin) helped to make writing this book an extreme pleasure. If someday the publishing thing doesnt work out, she could be a great Restaurant Woman.

Thanks to Rick Kot, without whose leadership and tenacity this book would still be living in the realm of ideas, and to everyone else at Viking.

As always, thanks to my tough-as-nails agent, Jane Give Em Hell in Chanel Dystel of Dystel & Goderich Literary Management, to whom I am more grateful than shell ever know.

Thanks to Cass Bird for capturing the spirit of Restaurant Man in his stainless-steel lair, to Lisa Eaton for designing the cover (and most of my life), and to Jessica Meyer for finding order in chaos.

Very special Restaurant Man thanks to my assistant Kim Reed, whose patience, spirit, charm, and organization (and ability to persuade the manager of Duane Reade to carry Pabst Blue Ribbon tallboys) kept this train a-rollin.

Love and thanks to all the busboys, coat-check girls, matre ds, dishwashers, hostesses, bartenders, cooks, waiters, sommeliers, captains, runners, and everyone else who worked with me over the years to create this incredible world, and especially to our fantastic customers, who supported our dreamyou are the reason all of this can happen.