Top 58 Quotes by Joe Bastianich

Take the time to shop for yourself and cook. All of this is an investment in yourself, and if you're not going to invest time and money in what you put in your body, then what are you going to spend money on? It's kind of the most important thing.

There are certain things that make restaurants work and a certain kind of DNA that people who excel in restaurants need. But it's a lot like life, in the sense that you get out of it what you put into it.

The menu should be part of the entertainment, part of the dining experience. It's kind of like reading the 'Playbill' when you go to the theater. It should be an alluring and interactive document. Does it have burn marks on it from the candle? If you ever get a greasy menu with food stains on it, it's time to run like hell.

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.

He brought a sensibility and a hard-edged reasonableness to operating restaurants that had a lasting impact on me and still affects how I run all our restaurants today. The passing of 'Restaurant Man' - the original gangsta 'Restaurant Man,' my father - was the passing of an era. No one can replace him.

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.