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My grandparents in Istria had a frasca, which is about the most basic kind of grocery/restaurant. They sold wine from their own vineyard. I took control of the vineyard, hired a local winemaker, and bought another winery in 1996. We had our first commercial vintage in 1998.

Joe Bastianich

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Joe Bastianich
Age: 56
Born: 1968
Born: September 17
Entrepreneur
Restaurateur
Television Personality
Television Presenter
Television Producer
Winemaker
New York City
New York
Joseph Bastianich
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'MasterChef' is the search for America's culinary amateur talent, so this is a search for the best home cook in America, and it's our job to figure out who that is.
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I have a Madonna portrait done in the style of a Russian icon. My mother, the chef Lidia Bastianich, and I bought it together. It reminds me of her.
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Essentially, wines are fermented grape juice, so I'm trying to make the point that the wine world is about scores and marketing and kind of creating a scarce resource where they don't really exist.
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Being general manager is like being the de facto owner. It's like wearing the crown of 'Restaurant Man' without being 'Restaurant Man.' You're trying to run the business, but you're running the ranch without riding the big horse.
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Aside from hospitality and delicious food, our [restaurateurs'] job is to entertain people. Restaurants should make people feel special, excited and fulfilled.
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Cooking for my family is always a pleasure when I'm able to do it. My favorite thing to make is really whatever my kids ask for on any given day. It's more about being with them and doing something together.
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America has been conditioned to think of pasta as the never-ending pasta bowl and Olive Garden.
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Maitre d's are at the financial spigot of the restaurant, meaning they control who gets in and who doesn't, but aside from that, they don't do anything. And yet they get paid as much as the highest-paid people in the place.
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It's kind of like a midlife crisis kind of thing. When you turn 40, you have to run the marathon, while all the parts still work properly.
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I was raised in restaurants. My parents opened their first restaurant, Buonavia, in Queens when I was just 3. This business has always been my way of life. As a kid, home was reserved only for sleeping. After school, you could find my sister and I helping out at the family restaurant.
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The best pastas are cut with bronze dies that give them a rough texture and allow the sauce to cling.
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I'm one of three judges on 'MasterChef' with Gordon Ramsay, but I don't want my own show. I'm kind of used to the sidekick gig.
Joe Bastianich
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After World War II, a lot of people moved to the cities for work and abandoned the old vineyards. Then in the 1950s and 1960s, wineries were paid to produce volume at a cheap price. That's when the Lambruscos and bad Chianti were popular.
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Babbo's menu is only four pages, but it's overwhelming - there are 20 different pastas in there, a lot of stuff. There is nothing I hate more than a useless, lazy menu with only three appetizers and four entrees.
Joe Bastianich
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When I stopped looking at food as a reward or a celebration and began looking at food as energy to fuel my athletic ambitions, that really kind of changed the whole world for me. That was the real 'aha!' moment.
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Being frugal, conscious of making money, is not a negative thing. That sensibility of creating value and finding value and reinvesting in those customers is what separates great restaurants from the average ones.
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With four-appetizer, four-entree menus, it's like, give me a break. That's not a restaurant, that's a dinner party.
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Restaurant Man is kind of the story, an unabridged story of what happened in my life, the good bad and ugly. Some people might glean some life lessons. It is honest, not written as a press release.
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If you eliminate the junk food, you don't really run the risk of gaining weight if you've got a good workout routine.
Joe Bastianich
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At home, I make a large batch of tomato sauce and freeze it in meal-size portions in freezer bags.
Joe Bastianich