A Man & His Meatballs: The Hilarious But True Story of a Self-Taught Chef and Restaurateur

I bought this book at the bargain shelve from a local bookstore. Something about the 2 huge meatballs attracted my attention. I looked at the contents of book and was happy that it contains recipes for pizza dough and some pizzas. I am from Singapore and really in love with New York pizzas! (thou I only tried NY-styled pizza from Brisbane, Australia) And I really like to make such tasty pizzas myself. On the same day, before I go to bed, I started to read the book. Immediately, I realised the book is a gem! Not a bargain at all. John LaFemina's common sense and passion for opening a restaurant, cooking and being a chef is really inspiring to me. One day, I hope to be able to say "Yes, I am" (the chef) like John.

I picked this book up from a remainder bin -- it seemed the most interesting in the pile. It is. While there are some nice recipes in the last half of the book, the author actually has written a quick primer in starting a new small business and dealing with contractors. His best advice (boiled down a lot) is to figure out what and calculate how much you have to sell to stay in business and plan around that, not spend huge amounts of energy writing an elaborate glossy business plan that's not connected with the fundamentals and will sink you in debt within 6 months. This assumes you walk in with the energy, common sense and creativity to pull it off, of course. Best of all, he doesn't actually offer much advice, he just tells what he did. I plan on giving this to my teenage son who is in the middle of the "what am I going to do with my life" blues. This is not a primer on how to start a restaurant. If you have no love of food, want to get rich quick and consider your evenings and weekends to be sacred, just read the recipes instead, they're pretty good.

If anyone needs to know why New York is a world class city, they won't find a better explanation than this brief but amusing and highly enlightening story about opening and running a restaurant. Meatballs? Anyone can cook meatballs. But, a meatball of veal, beef and pork with some onion, parsley, basil, Parmiagiano-Reggiano cheese, oregano and basic tomato sauce is something else. LaFemina grew up believing meatballs were the most special treat in the world; when he decided to open a restaurant, he discovered how much he didn't know. Fortunately, he includes his recipe for meatballs baked in a wood-fired oven. They're served without pasta. In addition, he needed to learn about creating a restaurant. For example, he had to deal with a telephone booth that appeared outside his new restaurant at some time between 2 a.m. and 8 a.m. He removed it with a jackhammer, and was promptly visited by a tall forty-something guy in a dark suit who said he "obviously didn't know who he was 'with' or who the officers of his company were." LaFemina, a native of Canarsie, told the tall guy "to have his CEO call my CEO and while he was at it, ask around and find out who I'm with." "Who are you with?" his wife asked him, having watched the encounter. LaFemina replied, "You." It's the pure New York of legend. The phone booth didn't come back, neither did the tall guy in the dark suit. But, many of New York's elite do dine at 'Apizz' and recommend it to others of the rich and powerful. How does a guy with a high school degree become one of the top Italian chefs in the city? It takes hard work, some luck, determination, a sense of humour and sheer nerve. Perhaps the key element is expressed in his reaction on opening night, which " . . . wasn't terrible. The whole thing felt fine to me, but not great. And I knew I wouldn't survive on 'fine'. Not in New York." "Fine" isn't good in New York. It's why the city is great. To be great in New York, one must be great. In today's world, when so much is defined by the intensity and meanness of pure anger, LaFemina uses sparkling humour to explain how he created a truly great restaurant. He's the ultimate "practical" hands-on common sense man, which in my experience reflects the pure heart of New York attitudes. LaFemina doesn't explain spread sheets and sales projections and pie charts, he counts the number of meatballs he must serve to cover expenses. It's this common sense approach, told with relevant humour, that makes this book a delight. Anyone who's ever gone to a good restaurant will love knowing some of the inner thinking that makes it a success. Plus, the 75 recipes are interesting.

The is the perfect book for anyone who has ever wanted to own a restaurant. The first half of the book is compelling and funny, and gives a lot of insight into what it takes to open a restaurant in NYC. I couldn't put it down!

A pleasure to read! The first half is a really funny, inspiring story of how John LaFemina made it in the restaurant world and the second half has some amazing recipes. I've made a few of them and they've been delicious - a taste of Apizz at home. This is a great book to own or give any aspiring restaurateur or a fan of LaFemina's restaurants in Manhattan.