"The Restaurant", a reality TV show premiered Sunday night on NBC at 10 pm PDST. I had misgivings prior to viewing the show, despite the strong write-up. I didn't expect a show that in it's first episode (of six episodes), that revolved mainly around the finding and renovation of the restaurant site, could be as entertaining.

The series follows 36-year-old chef Rocco DiSpirito, in an intimate look at the creation of Rocco's on 22nd, a home-style Italian restaurant in Manhattan.

DiSpirito, owner/chef is movie-star handsome — he once made People magazine's list of sexiest men — and is accustomed to being in front of cameras, as one of the hosts of the Food Network's "Melting Pot."

Rocco is articulate, engaging and handsome. A native of Long Island, he graduated from Boston University and the Culinary Institute of America, and is the proprietor of Union Pacific restaurant, down the street from Rocco's.

As an aside, Rocco confessed that in his early years he was ashamed of being Italian, and insisted that his parents NOT speak Italian in the home!!!! It would be interesting to find out if it was the Negative Media Barrage that was responsible. If so, his case is MUCH too common.

Then Rocco discovers his Italian Identity,... in Italian Food!!!! Ohmyg-d!
Of course Italian Cuisine is wonderful! BUT, with the INCREDIBLE History, and Culture of Italy, that is unsurpassed by ANY other country, and gives one with Italian ancestry SO Much to be proud, why are so many of us "content" to allow our identity to be "measured" by such a NARROW spectrum... to be merely "Mangia" Italians???

Rocco is handsome, bright, charming, down to earth, sometimes taking the enormous "stress" well, at other times, momentarily "prickly". You will like him, and his mother, Nicolina, who adds a soothing hand to the operation.
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RECIPE FOR TROUBLE?

It's hard enough to open an eatery even without TV cameras recording your every move, but chef Rocco DiSpirito is up to the task.

By Lewis Beale
Special to The Times

July 20, 2003

One thing's for sure about nearly every so-called reality program that's come along during the recent boom in unscripted TV: There's nothing real about the experiences they show....

Reality TV has been frequently entertaining, often successful, periodically compelling. What it almost never is is anything like real life. The real world involves going to work, taking home a paycheck and — especially if you work in a restaurant in Los Angeles or New York — hoping for a shot in front of the cameras.

Something like what's at the heart of the latest entrant in the reality boom, NBC's "The Restaurant."

The six-episode program, which debuts at 10 tonight, is an intimate look at the creation of Rocco's on 22nd, a home-style Italian restaurant in Manhattan. The series follows 36-year-old chef Rocco DiSpirito as he searches for a location, oversees construction, hires and trains staff, experiments with a menu and opens for business. It also features the stories and interactions of a colorful crew of waiters, chefs and bartenders....

"The Restaurant" does take some liberties with what ordinarily happens when a new dining establishment opens.

For one, this whole enterprise — finding a location, fixing it up, hiring employees and then training them — was done in just five weeks. But it's not uncommon to take a year or more for a typical high-end Manhattan eatery.

Then there's the chef. DiSpirito is movie-star handsome — he once made People magazine's list of sexiest men — and is accustomed to being in front of cameras, as one of the hosts of the Food Network's "Melting Pot."

Oh, and speaking of cameras, the main difference between Rocco's and virtually every other restaurant is that all that went into getting the business up and running was done before the unblinking eye of NBC's cameras.

"I've always thought a restaurant is a place that doesn't reveal all of its secrets," says DiSpirito, proving that he's a novice in reality TV, where any embarrassing details that aren't disclosed by the participants are quickly unearthed by thesmokinggun.com.

"It's like Oz: There's the illusion and the fantasy, but no one ever gets to see the wizard behind the curtains. Since everyone has a fantasy about opening a restaurant and how glamorous it is, it's only natural that behind the scenes should be interesting to people."

Rocco's has been open since early June, dishing out comfort food such as veal parmigiana ($23), clams oreganata ($10) and spaghetti with meatballs ($15). Moreover, even though most of the wait staff and bartenders in the series hope for show business careers (so what else is new?), they all have restaurant experience and can be found working hard every night at Rocco's East 22nd Street location.

"That was the advantage of taking this job," says Lonn Coward, a server captain and an aspiring musician. "Not only was it a possible television show, but you had a restaurant job. So if the show doesn't make it, we still have jobs."

What he and the other staff don't have are huge TV salaries: The staff is paid restaurant wages, not Screen Actors Guild rates....

"The Restaurant" was the brainchild of Ben Silverman, who is executive producer along with "Survivor's" Mark Burnett and Robert Riesenberg, an executive with Magna Global Entertainment, which was responsible for lining up the very prominent product placements by Coors, American Express and Mitsubishi. DiSpirito owns Rocco's on 22nd along with restaurant financier Jeffrey Chodorow.

After the producers searched for the right chef to star in the show, a mutual friend hooked them up with the articulate, engaging and handsome chef. A native of Long Island, he graduated from Boston University and the Culinary Institute of America, and is the proprietor of Union Pacific restaurant, down the street from Rocco's.

Staff auditions were held in late April outside the future site of Rocco's. Thanks in part to a promotional appearance on NBC's "Today" show, more than 1,500 applied for 70 staff slots. Everyone was interviewed by two of DiSpirito's managers, DiSpirito himself and a psychiatrist — an idea that came from Burnett, who was looking for character types who would mix and conflict in interesting ways. Restaurant experience was a must but so was an expansive personality.

"NBC wanted great waiters and bartenders who were also great characters," DiSpirito says. "A big personality is great for a TV show and a restaurant. It is a performance. But sometimes they're too big, and that person is looking for validation and attention, when what they should be doing is giving validation and attention."

Stand-up guys

So waiter and aspiring comedian Pete Giovine made the cut because he had a solid restaurant background, and the producers liked his stand-up routine. Server captain and actor Uzay Tumer was chosen because he told DiSpirito that he liked to bring a family atmosphere to a restaurant, a spirit Rocco's is trying to attain. And model-bartender Heather Snell made it because, she says, "they told me I had charm, they thought I was a pretty girl from a small town in Tennessee, and that meant I had a good story."

Giovine, Tumer and Snell are still working at Rocco's.

Some others who made the finals were either fired or left voluntarily once it became obvious they were only in it for the exposure.

"The people that came here just to be on TV" constituted the worst part of the whole experience," says co-executive chef Tony Acinapura. "That disappointed me, because I invested my time training people, showing them my passion and love for what I do, and they were basically playing."

That was by no means the only problem DiSpirito and his staff had to deal with. The rapidity of the process meant that "this was like a restaurant opening on steroids," Giovine says.

"Think of the process like a child prodigy who skips through high school and goes right to college," DiSpirito says. "He's smart, but you definitely miss some things, and it may not be obvious right in the beginning of his college career. We did it, but I wouldn't recommend doing it like that."

Opening-night jitters

The presence of cameras, which the staff seems to have adjusted to relatively easily, turned out to be among the least of Rocco's problems. The pressure-cooker environment meant that relationships came to a head faster, and employees walked out faster, DiSpirito says.

"The compromises and decisions we had to make to get this thing open on time were tough. It's still not finished," he says, a couple of weeks after the public was first invited to dine at Rocco's.

Which meant that, as far as opening night went, "fuhgeddaboutit," Acinapura says. "It was a total disaster," DiSpirito adds. "The food wasn't coming out on time, it was cold, the service definitely wasn't there, the whole flow wasn't happening, and the integration of the crew was weeks away from feeling good." All of this turns up on the show — minus the abundant profanity.

Even now, Rocco's is generating a wide range of reviews, with the New York Web site citysearch.com offering user comments ranging from "Rocco's rocks" to "one of the worst dining experiences in New York."

Yet even though Rocco's is still a work in progress, with some construction remaining and the staff just getting up to speed, no one seems to regret the on-camera experience. DiSpirito feels the restaurant's ultimate success will not depend on the performance of the show, but acknowledges that if "The Restaurant" is a hit, it will serve as a great marketing tool. As far as the staff is concerned, it's a win-win situation: The exposure can't help but benefit either their show business or restaurant careers.

"We're working for the most well-known restaurant in the world," Tumer says. "When the show airs, everyone from Colorado or Ohio, when they come to New York, they'll say, 'Oh, we should go to 'The Restaurant.' That means this place is gonna be around for a really long time."

*
'The Restaurant'
Who: Chef Rocco DiSpirito, assisted by his mother, Nicolina DiSpirito.
When: 10 p.m. Sundays, premiering tonight.
Where: NBC
Production credits: Executive producers Ben Silverman, Mark Burnett, Robert Riesenberg.

Recipe for trouble?
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/printedition/calendar/
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