Don't Try This at Home (19 page)

He was remarkably attentive to his companions, accepting their compliments with graciousness and what appeared to be genuine
enthusiasm and warmth, feeding off their excitement. But excitement isn't enough to sustain you, especially when you've just
come off the stage at the Metropolitan. Gradually his eyes went from the patrons to their plates, until he was focused on
nothing but their food.

Watching this from the kitchen, I knew that he must be ravenous. Even in my limited acting career, I learned how the physical
and emotional exertion required for a performance could leave you starving. Just imagine how hungry the great Pavarotti must
be.

As this thought crystallized in my head, Pavarotti's hunger peaked. He picked up his fork and began spearing the food on other
people's plates.

Before too long, it became clear to the others at the table that the way to get Pavarotti's attention was to share your food
with him.

"Maestro, try my soup!"

"Signor Pavarotti, try my salad!"

Within minutes, it looked as though some force of nature had upended the table and all of the plates had slid down to Pavarotti's
end. He had before him a sampling of just about every dish on the menu.

Quickly, Joe took me by the elbow, escorted me to the table, and introduced me to Pavarotti. "Maestro, this is our chef. Michael
Lomonaco."

"Ah, Lomonaco," said Pavarotti, taking my hand. His voice was full of enthusiasm. A
paesano
in the kitchen.

I tried to welcome him in my meager Italian, but he was quite comfortable in English and spared me the trouble.

"I don't want too much," he said. "Just a little bit. Maybe a little smoked salmon." He pinched an inch of space between his
thumb and forefinger to demonstrate his modest appetite.

"Very good, maestro."

I began to turn away, but he stopped me by putting up his hand. He glanced disapprovingly at the portion of smoked salmon
before the woman next to him. "But more than
that,
please."

I turned again, to go fetch Signor Pavarotti his double portion of salmon, but he grabbed my arm, stopping me.

"And maybe some pasta."

"Pasta, of course," I said, trying to mask my excitement.

Cooking pasta for Pavarotti. My family was going to be so proud.

"What kind?"

"You decide."

My mind's eye flashed back to those mushrooms. "We have some beautiful wild mushrooms. And some black truffles."

"Bravo. Perfecto.
But just a little. I'm really not that hungry."

So, at one thirty in the morning, I went into the kitchen and made Pavarotti's dinner, slicing the finest of our mushrooms—chanterelles
and porcini—sauteing them in butter, finishing them with some chicken stock, butter, and cream, and tossing them with freshly
cooked fettuccine. I plated the pasta, finished it with a scattering of minced chives, and shaved a generous amount of black
truffle over it.

When it was finally served to him, it went fast.

A few minutes later, I stuck my head out of the kitchen.

Pavarotti was again being subjected to a barrage of food, this time desserts.

"Maestro, try my fruit soup!"

"Maestro, try my poached pear."

Those who weren't offering him food were posing for pictures with him. If Pavarotti wasn't chewing, he was saying "Cheese,"

and all this after a three-hour performance.

I recognized this as my chance. Not only would I grant him a break, but I would amaze Pavarotti with a dessert created just
for him. I approached the table and asked him what he'd like.

He shook his head: "Not much. I'm not so hungry. Maybe just some
sorbetto.
Do you have
sorbettoV
"Yes, of course, we have coconut, raspberry, and"—I delayed the last one for effect, knowing it would appeal to his Italian
soul—"and grapefruit-Campari."

"Ah, bene"
he said.
"Tutto"
Which means
all.

Then he smiled, and added, "But not too much."

I returned to the kitchen and fixed Pavarotti a beautiful bowl of sorbet, double portions of all three, along with some berries
and a sprig of mint. I presented it myself. It wasn't cooking on the edge, but it was a thrill, to be sure.

At about two thirty in the morning, the last morsel of food had been eaten, the last drop of wine drained from the last glass,
the last photograph had been taken, and it dawned on the party that the evening had reached its end.

Pavarotti, his host, and the other twenty or so guests stood up en masse and walked through the rooms of ' 2 1 . '

In their costumes—Pavarotti's extravagant getup and the others' black ties and evening dresses—they looked like the cast of
an opera themselves, making a grand exit, never to return, a theatrical mirage that appeared in our dining room all too briefly,
then vanished.

My crew took off for the night. The porters and cleanup guys were finally able to begin
their
jobs, which wouldn't be over until sunup. God bless 'em.

I had a long way to go to get home, because in those days my wife, Diane, and I still lived in Brooklyn. But I lingered for
a few more minutes, strolling around the kitchen, letting the echoes of the evening die down in my head.

I paused at the door, taking in the room. And then I turned out the lights, closing down
my
theater for the evening, and went home to get some rest before tomorrow's performance in this most unique of all restaurants,
this living dream on West Fifty-second Street.

A User's Guide to
Opening a Hamptons Restaurant

PINO LUONGO

A
native of Tuscany, Pino Luongo is the unstoppable force
behind some of New York City's most influential Italian
restaurants,
including the groundbreaking II Cantinori, which he
opened in 1983. Other Luongo classics include Coco Pazzo
and Centolire. The author of four cookbooks, Luongo was also
the subject of a memorable chapter in Anthony Bourdain s
Kitchen Confidential.
Some of Luongo
9
s restaurants, like Sapor e
di Mare, Mad 61, and Le Madri, have faded into history, but still
conjure fond memories for those who dined there.

I
GREW UP IN Tuscany, and some of my happiest recollections are of summers at the beach in Porto Ecole and Porto Santo
Stefano, where the sun shone brightly all day and my friends and I spent months splashing in the surf, cruising around in
our convertibles, and eating by the shore. Music from those long-ago days still echoes in my mind, like Mungo Jerry's "In
the Summertime" or those opening piano blasts of the Beatles' "The Long and Winding Road," taking me right back to 1971.

I came to New York City in 1980, and three years later, I opened my first restaurant, II Cantinori, a menuless trattoria on
East Tenth Street where we served different dishes every night based on the market and my mood. It was a sensation and, though
I haven't been a part of it for a long time, still does a solid business.

As much as I loved living in New York City (and still do), I had come to miss the ocean. Manhattan is surrounded by water,
of course, but we're talking rivers—sluggish, filthy rivers that separate it from New Jersey and the outer boroughs. So in
the fall of 1986,1 decided to spend some time by the beach, in the fabled Hamptons.

If you don't know, the Hamptons are a weekend playground for the rich and famous, about two hours east of the city, or four
hours on a summer Friday when the Long Island Expressway is jammed beyond belief.

The Hamptons are where everyone from Puff Daddy to Steven Spielberg go to relax, be seen, and luxuriate in their palatial
homes. They have been fashionable forever;
The Great
Gatsby
takes place in the Hamptons, even though F. Scott Fitzgerald made up different names for them.

I never cared one way or another about the scene out there. What I loved was being near the ocean. It just makes me feel good—so
good that I didn't even care if it was summer or not; the first time I rented in the Hamptons was in the off season, from
Labor Day through Memorial Day, instead of the other way around.

I was newly married and my wife, Jessie, and I took a house that wasn't winterized. It was chilly and drafty and the toilet
water froze, but it was near the Napeague Bay, not far from Montauk, so I was happy to be there.

I remember driving around the Hamptons in those dark, winter days and thinking to myself how few restaurants there were in
the towns along 27, the Montauk Highway, which connects the dots on the Hamptons map, from Southampton to Bridgehampton to
East Hampton and on out to Montauk.

There's so little action, I thought, in the summer this place must be magic.

Inspired by the proximity to water and by a fierce longing for summer, I began to envision a restaurant that would capture
all the charm of Porto Ecole and Porto Santo Stefano, a restaurant that could re-create those long-ago days—that sense of
summer, salt, sand, tanned skin, and the simple food that brought each day to a perfect close.

I started tapping the steering wheel, singing
"In the
summertime,
when the sun goes down
. . ."

Later that winter, I was driving along 27, about to round the bend into East Hampton, when I passed what looked like a haunted
house. Formerly the home of Charlotte's The Hidden Pond restaurant, and before that the home of a state senator, the property
was available and the owners had gone into bankruptcy, explained a sign.

The place was an eyesore: a Tudor-style English house with a dark wooden frame and a sad, gray tint to the stucco. It was
in merciless disrepair, with huge nicks in the walls and cracks in the wood.

But I saw potential in it, and I loved that it was situated at the end of one of the splits of Georgica Pond, which flows
alongside 27 where Bridgehampton and East Hampton meet. Plus, I fancy myself the Bob Vila of the restaurant industry, able
to turn "This Old Restaurant" into something shiny and new.

So it was that in February 1987,1 assumed ownership of the space and went to work transforming it into a spot-on replica of
a Mediterranean villa, with tile floors, terra-cotta accents, and lots of wide open spaces through which the summer breeze
could blow, carrying that precious scent of the sea right through the dining room.

I named my new pet project Sapore di Mare, meaning "taste of the sea," and we opened on May 23, 1987. The restaurant exceeded
my wildest hopes: it was an instant success. Friends and customers from the city, many of whom had weekend homes in the Hamptons,
showed up in our first days and weeks, and their reaction was a unanimous "wow."

But I'll tell you something: I was banging out the wrong song on my steering wheel the fateful day that I spotted this space.
I should've picked "The Long and Winding Road," because that's what it was like operating a restaurant out there. Really long,
and really fucking winding.

We had a good run at Sapore di Mare, but we also had our challenges. And many of them were challenges unique to this kind
of moneyed, resort community. So, for anyone out there interested in opening a restaurant in the Hamptons, here's my hard-earned
advice:

1. Don't Hire Your Own Family

A constant struggle in the early days of Sapore di Mare was that the Hamptons' supply of seasoned hospitality professionals
was very poor.

I was blessed with a great chef, an American named Mark Strausman who cooks with the soul of an Italian and later became my
chef at Coco Pazzo; and a maitre d' named Ariel Lacayo, a sharply dressed, smooth-tongued Latin American who works with me
today at Centolire, where people still remember him from those days at the beach.

But we had big problems finding support in the kitchen or the dining room. It quickly became apparent to me that no matter
how many ads we ran in the paper, and no matter how many phone calls I made, we were going to have trouble filling all the
positions. As for the few employees that we
did
manage to find—locals who had worked in diners and greasy-spoon joints—they could barely handle the pressure. Most of them
stopped showing up for work after a few days, never to be heard from again.

I was able to both cook and work the dining room, but you can only do so much at once. So, when we opened, I told Ariel to
keep the crowd to a manageable size, even turning away business if necessary. And to make sure that he didn't cave into the
pressure of clamoring customers, I asked Jessie, then five months pregnant, to work the door with him.

This was a sound enough plan, but the Hamptons in the summer are populated with everyone who ever set foot in II Cantinori,
or so it seemed. So, as the hour approached eight o'clock each evening, the phone began to ring off the hook. Jessie would
dutifully tell all comers that we were fully booked. In most towns, that would have been the end of the discussion.

But not in the Hamptons.

In fact, there was no
discussion.
A typical exchange went like this:

Ring. Ring.

JESSIE: Hello?

CUSTOMER: This is Ms. So-and-So. Do you have a table available at nine p.m.?

JESSIE: No, I'm sorry, we're fully booked.

CUSTOMER: Just tell Pino we're coming over.

JESSIE: But . . .

Click. Dial tone. Sound of Jessie slamming down the phone.

"Tell Pino we're coming over" was the most-uttered phrase in the Hamptons that summer, along with "I'm a friend of Pino's,"
favored by guests who didn't even bother to call, and instead just showed up, their version of "Open Sesame."

About once a night, poor Jessie would come swinging through the door to the kitchen, which opened right onto the pasta station,
where I usually cooked. She would tell me of the latest inhuman treatment she had received, and then sulk back to the dining
room.

It breaks a man's heart to see his wife look so sad, especially when she's trying to help him out. But what could I do? I
needed somebody I could trust minding the store.

And so it went in those early days, the rousing success marred only by my wife's misery.

One night, I was going about my business at the pasta station when I had that sixth-sense intuition, unique to chefs and restaurateurs,
that I had better go check on the dining room. I did: everything was fine. But my radar wasn't totally busted. Sitting
on
the reservation desk was Jessie, staring off into space, shell-shocked.

It was clear that this couldn't continue. All that lay ahead for me was trouble: a series of tense battles on the home front,
the evil product of seeds planted in the restaurant. Moments later, as I watched my dear wife withstand an earful of abuse
from yet another unannounced group, I decided that I had no choice. I had to get rid of her.

But I couldn't bring myself to fire her.

At the end of the night, I pulled Ariel aside and told him, "Tomorrow morning, the moment you get up, find me a new hostess.
Don't go to the beach. Don't come in here. Get on the phone and find me someone and have her here by three thirty,"—an hour
before Jessie's scheduled arrival.

The next day, Ariel had a new hostess installed, as directed. When Jessie showed up, she jerked a thumb in the girl's direction
and asked Ariel what was going on.

"Pino had to replace you," he said, trying to sound soothing on my behalf. "It was too much stress for you."

"Oh really?"

Jessie came swinging into the kitchen and stared at me with a look so cold that the pasta water stopped boiling: "You know,
I really don't care about working here," she screamed. "I was trying to help you out. But
you . . . you . . .
you
coward.
You couldn't tell me yourself?"

"That's right," I said. "I couldn't do it. But what's important is I'd rather keep you as a wife than as an employee."

I guess I was losing my touch as a ladies' man, because she spun around in a rage and stomped out of the kitchen. But she
was home that night when I got back from work, and though she didn't admit it right away, she was happier. We have three kids
today and a good marriage, and it's all because I did the right thing and replaced her that night, sparing her any more indignities
at the hands of my dear Hamptons customers.

2. Don't Hire Your Customers' Family

That first summer, while I was in New York City running II Cantinori during the week, I would get frantic calls from Mark,
the chef, increasingly concerned by our lack of help. Our employment problems continued unabated and we were only getting
busier and busier. If I had known what an ongoing headache this would be, I probably never would have opened the restaurant.

I was in a desperate situation, so when two of my regular customers (too ridiculously affluent and influential to name) asked
me to give their home-from-college kids—we'll call them Mitch and Missy—summer jobs, I thought, Sure, why not? And I hired
them as a busboy and busgirl.

Before we go any further, you have to understand that I come from an Italian family and that we pride ourselves on our work
ethic. The idea that some people simply have no pride whatsoever was completely beyond me.

But I got a quick lesson.

The trouble started almost immediately, when Missy showed up for her first day at work in her BMW convertible and parked it
in the lot next to the highway. Our innkeeper, a very serious, old Dominican, instructed her to park it out back—the front
lot was for customers. "Oh, Chico," she said to him without breaking stride, her blond hair flowing behind her in the summer
wind, "I
am
a customer."

Instead of showing up at five minutes to four, like the employees who needed the job, she and Mitch showed up at four thirty,
fresh from the beach, unkempt, and smelling of the sea and sand.

"You, boy," I said to the young man. "Do you have a watch?"

"Yes, Mr. Luongo."

"What time are you supposed to be here?"

"Four o'clock."

"And what time is it?"

He looked down at his Rolex. "Four thirty."

"So?"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Luongo. I fell asleep at the beach."

I looked at his unshaven face, his salt-caked hair. "What are you going to do about a shower?"

"Oh, I don't need a shower, Mr. Luongo. I'm just a busboy."

"Just a busboy? Look at these other people who are 'just busboys,'" I said, gesturing at the well-groomed crew, in freshly
cleaned black slacks and white shirts: my proud, hardworking team.

"How many times have you come to my restaurant? Do the busboys look like this?" I pointed at him, to make sure he understood
what
this
meant.

"You're right, Mr. Luongo. I'm sorry. It'll never happen again."

Once they got to work, things weren't much better. Missy had an aversion to soiled dishes, an unfortunate trait in a busgirl.
When she approached an abandoned table, with its half-eaten pastas, napkins dropped in sauce, and cigarette butts in the wineglasses,
she would scrunch up her face and hold her breath. Then, to avoid breaking a nail, she would only pick up one or two dishes
at a time, scurry to the kitchen with them, and come back for the next puny load.

On a scale of one to ten, I'd say she was a minus ten.

As if I didn't have enough problems to deal with, every time I left the kitchen, I'd find these kids doing something unbelievable.
Like the time I discovered them in the middle of Saturday-night service, passing a cigarette back and forth in the parking
lot out behind the kitchen. Or when they took a break that same night to sit at the bar and have a cocktail.