Restaurant Man

Publishers Weekly

The restaurateur/wine producer—and rising television (MasterChef) personality, behind Batali et al.—charts his personal and professional journey in this salty, rollicking memoir. Bastianich’s father, Felice, owned an Italian restaurant in Queens where the young author learned the business alongside his mother and now-famous chef, Lidia. The family spent summers on the Italian-Yugoslav border, where local foods, wines, and the people behind them made a deep and lasting impression. Through lessons at home, at the family restaurant, at school, and on the streets, including time on Wall Street during the early 1990s, Bastianich sought his own identity. The strong pull of his heritage and its food and wine, however, soon transformed him into a “restaurant man” like his father. Early lessons came hard, even while his family history helped, and success did, too. His meeting with Mario Batali and the opening of their first joint project, along with his own winemaking and wine-selling ventures rewrote contemporary Italian cuisine. Though the author takes gutsy credit for innovations like the “everything bagel” and bar dining, his forthrightness about the business nitty-gritty and his own failures and mistakes are bonus takeaways along the utterly readable way. (June)

Anthony Bourdain

“Restaurant Man by [Joe Bastianich is] a terrific trench level primer on the biz.”

Mario Batali

“In Restaurant Man…Joe Bastianich has served up a very smart insider’s take on the New York City culinary scene as only and erudite and successful member of the secret society can do. The subtext of this love letter to the memory of his father is in itself a magnificent stand-alone dissertation. Joe pulls no punches and tells it exactly like it is in a way that punctuates the many oddities with brilliant black humor and scene-of-the-crime, matter-of-fact perspective. Restaurant Man will resonate with anyone who has come in contact with the world of food, entertainment, and wine or the cottage industry of scripted reality television it has spawned.”

Moira Hodgson

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

The New York Observer

“Enthralling…. Funny, often surprising, and if anything, illuminating.”

People

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

Russ Parsons

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

Wine Spectator

“[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.”

The New York Daily News

“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 Beard-winning restaurateur….[Restaurant Man] serves as an education—and a warning—to anyone who is thinking of entering the restaurant business.”

WashingtonPost.com

“[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.”

PortlandFoodandDrink.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”

www.StarChefs.com

“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.”

Palm Beach Daily News

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

LoHud.com

“[Restaurant Man] is full of frank, personal revelations…but it’s also an eye-popping industry expose.”

www.NorwalkCitizenOnline.com

“A fascinating look at the nuts and bolts of running successful restaurants…. Offering tantalizing and deeply personal behind the scenes [sic] information about pricing, menu development, wines, hiring and firing.”

www.FoodRepublic.com

“[Joe] Bastianich’s Restaurant Man rightfully sits alongside Anthony Bourdain’s seminal Kitchen Confidential, pulling readers into the complex inner workings of the restaurant industry…. It’s compulsively readable…. Unabashedly dishy.”

The Opelika-Auburn News

“An insight into the restaurant business that few offer in this way.... Read this book and you will never look at a restaurant the same way again. You will have a new and broader appreciation for what it takes to make the experience for you and what it costs to do it right…. Four stars.”

The BookReport

“A fantastic memoir…. Brutally honest, and one of the best memoirs of its kind since Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential.”

Library Journal

Bastianich's insider's view of the New York wine and restaurant world is either straightforward, in-your-face, or just plain crude, depending on the reader's tolerance for four-letter words and descriptions like "arrogant douche bag" and "pretentious tool" (and those are the guys he respects). Bastianich, son of cookbook author and restaurateur Lidia Bastianich, is a self-described wine savant, who has opened a generous handful of successful New York eateries, often in partnership with Mario Batali (e.g., Babbo). His darkly humorous and gossipy memoir begins with his philosophy: appear to be generous but keep an eagle eye on the bottom line. This narrative has something to offend everybody, from Jesuit priests (fat) to Irish girls (easy) to professional waiters (bitter), Beverly Hills ("makes me want to barf"), and foodies ("spoiled kids"). VERDICT Whatever readers may think of Bastianich's writing style, he knows food, wine, and the restaurant business. The combative assessment of patrons, chefs, and critics is reminiscent of Anthony Bourdain (Kitchen Confidential; Medium Raw) and covers some of the same territory. Best for those considering work in the restaurant field or who want to sit on the stoop after hours and dish about the inner workings of the high-stakes wine and food industry in New York City. [See Prepub Alert, 11/21/12.]—Maggie Knapp, Trinity Valley Sch. Lib., Fort Worth, TX

Kirkus Reviews

A frank and funny memoir of a successful New York restaurateur. Distinctly Italian with a twist of Queens, Bastianich displays a palpable love of good Italian food and wine throughout his humorous reflections on how he became one of the best-known restaurant owners in New York City. From his early days as a dishwasher and busboy in his parents' Italian restaurant (his mother is famed chef Lidia Bastianich), the author learned the basics of restaurant management--e.g., "your margins are three times your cost on everything"; "you have to appear to be generous, but you have to be inherently a cheap fuck to make it work"; "no bottle of wine costs more than five dollars to make." After a stint in Wall Street and a wild time in Italy working in restaurants and vineyards, Bastianich returned to New York, unable to deny his "biological imperative." Using the maxims his father had taught him, he launched his own restaurant, Becco, and from there the direction was only up. He and his business partner, Mario Batali, moved on to open many other prosperous Italian eateries, culminating in his part ownership of Del Posto, the only four-star Italian restaurant in America. Despite his liberal use of the f-bomb, the author's easygoing voice and substantial knowledge of real Italian food (not the spaghetti-and-meatballs kind) will lure booklovers and food lovers alike. Oenophiles will appreciate Bastianich's rich descriptions of the many Italian wines he recommends and his savant-like ability to recall and identify the tens of thousands of wines he has tasted since his childhood. Engrossing details of being the front man in a variety of thriving restaurants.