Daniel Holzman - The Meatball Shop Cookbook

Copyright 2011 by Daniel Holzman and Michael Chernow
Photographs copyright 2011 by John Kernick

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

B ALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Props and food styling by Alison Attenbourgh

eISBN: 978-0-440-42318-8

www.ballantinebooks.com

v3.1

To my mother, Sherry;
my father, John;
and my big brother, Eli.

Daniel

To my father, Mark;
my mother, Toni;
my sister, Nicole;
and my wife, Donna.

Michael

We had talked about opening a restaurant together ever since we had our very first jobs as delivery boys for the Candle Cafe, a vegan restaurant (yeah, you read that rightvegan) on Manhattans Upper East Side. We were thirteen, best friends, and we had big plans. We wanted to open our own place, a restaurant where our friends could hang outa place created for us, by us.

After high school we both continued to work in the restaurant business. Daniel found his home in the kitchen, taking a job at the legendary Le Bernardin, and eventually moved out west to work in kitchens in Las Vegas, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, while Michael stayed in New York, polishing his skills working in the front of the house at a series of popular bars and restaurants. Michael eventually joined Daniel out west for a short time, but his heart belonged to New York, and he returned and soon after met his wife, Donna. Daniel knew that if he and Michael wanted to realize their dream of opening a place together, it would have to be in their hometown of NYC, so he soon returned as well. New York was home and filled with a supportive network of friends.

While we didnt know what neighborhood we wanted to be in yet, or what type of food we would serve, heres what we did know: We wanted a place that felt as if it had always been there, a staple, an institution. A place with better food than what youd make at home. A place that would be a great date spot, sort of our take on the 1950s roller rink/burger joint. A place that was casual (nothing overly fancy, intimidating, or chef driven) but most important, that you would be drawn to and that had an innovative, reasonably priced menua place where you could afford to become a regular. A place that was relaxed, with good energy, where you could listen to some killer music, eat great food, and meet some interesting people while you dug into your plate. A place that was warm, welcoming, and satisfying as well, kinda as comforting and eagerly anticipated as a bowl of delicious meatballs.

Because for us it was all about the balls.

Weve been asked this question a thousand times. It all started with a joke.

Michael was working at a popular East Village Italian restaurant. Daniel would stop by occasionally late at night after work to catch up and hang out. Now, keep in mind that Michael is a marathon runner and generally healthy dude, and his daily late-night meal was the restaurants staple rigatoni rag minus the rigatoni. What was left was a bowl of meatballs and sauce that hed eat alongside an order of broccoli, beets, or spinach. Daniel would come in and taunt him, saying things like Be a man; eat a bowl of pasta, but sure enough, the one time Daniel caved and ordered the rigatoni Mikey C style, he was hooked.

But we still werent ready to have our lives revolve around meatballs. Initially we had a different menu and restaurant concept in mind, and we spent months chasing spaces and locations, only to miss out on each lease. We came closest on a space that had a walk-up window, which we figured we could use for to-go food. We brainstormed and cased the Lower East Side neighborhood at all hours, figuring out just what we could serve out of the window. What do you serve the hordes of young and hungries late at night? Something hearty, superdelicious, yet still healthy. Of course, it had been sitting in front of us every nightMikey Cstyle meatballs! And then we lost the space.

At first we were crushed, and then we snapped out of it with a big lightbulb momentwe said enough already, lets do fast food for our generation and open up an actual meatball shop. After all, wasnt Daniel tired of cooking fancy food at fancy restaurants charging a fortune? Wasnt our shared mission to reinvent fast food and elevate it to casual dining? Couldnt a meatball do all that and more? So, in the end we decided that there was no reason meatballs shouldnt be celebrated with their very own shop.

The food theme was decided. Familiar, accessible, affordable. Now we had to fine-tune and finance that dream.

Like most good things, realizing our dream didnt come easy. But we stuck to it. We committed ourselves to hard work and went about developing the meatball concept. We reconfigured the numbers and wrote up a business plan. We pounded the pavement looking for locations, and we hosted a series of Sunday-night test suppers on Michael and Donnas roof in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Thats where we hammered it all outwhere we developed the food, began to build the team, and fine-tuned the menu and service.

We sat out under the stars at a long table laden with a dozen different meatballs and stick to your bones sides and created the mix-and-match idea that became our signature theme. Here Donna, fresh out of pastry school, became our first official pastry chef, and concocted our single, revolutionary yet simple dessert, the cookie ice-cream sandwich. We crafted just the right amount of cookie-crunch ratio to creamy ice cream and cooled off the heat of those steamy summer nights with Donnas chocolate walnut meringue ice-cream sandwiches. These dinners were the heart and soul of what was to become The Meatball Shop.

Throughout those dinners we continued to go back and forth, arguing over the virtues of sauces and ball pairings, sides and ball pairings and ultimately realizing theres no right or wrong way to eat these balls. We decided to throw out the rules and not tell people what to order. We wanted to allow our guests to be in charge, to be able to customize their own meals, kind of like a choose-your-own adventure. Today, thats what makes the Shop so specialhow many other restaurants give you a marker and a laminated menu and tell you to mix and match? Sure, were happy to make suggestions and we have our own faves, but at the Shop, youre the boss.