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.

You can enjoy a $15 bottle of wine as much as you can enjoy a $100 bottle of wine.

I definitely invented the everything bagel. There's no doubt. It's undeniable truth. It's one of those things that's 100% true, 50% of the time.

Although I love all the great foods of the world, my death row meal would have to be cooked for me by my mother and grandmother (they live together and this happens on most Sundays). More than satisfy our hunger, these dinners nurture the soul.

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.

At Babbo, each dish grew out of a conversation, trying to put something forth that was new and different. It was a combination of culinary adventurism and the dining-room experience with respect for the classic but with an eye toward innovation. And it was about eating locally, whether produce or fish or meat.

With four-appetizer, four-entree menus, it's like, give me a break. That's not a restaurant, that's a dinner party.