I’ve never been the shy retiring type – so if we run into each other in a bar, a restaurant, a baseball game, or BBQ competition please say hello!

While most people know me as a mixologist, author of Four Cocktail Books, and the first brand ambassador for Grey Goose Vodka, I have been a restaurant owner, operator, consultant and investor for almost 45 years now.  In short, I have worked with some of the most iconic brands and businesses in the hospitality industry.  For many years I was the managing partner of Gramercy Tavern in NYC. I left in 2003 to start my consulting practice where I helped to open, or consulted to, a couple of hundred  businesses including the Television Food Network, and where I brought the iconic Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center back to its historic significance and turning it into one of the highest-grossing food-service operations in the world.

So, whether helping to organize and expand Towson Hot Bagels in Maryland (the best bagels in Baltimore!), upgrading the operational efficiency & reducing COGS for Standard Hotel Highline (coolest hotel anywhere!), upgrading service & processes for The Allendale & Mahwah Bar and Grills in New Jersey (best burgers in Jersey), The Television Food Network and separately Rachael Ray ,  Origen Holistic Vodka & Harmony Gin or so many other amazing businesses I have always been the guy envisioning, inspiring, creating or uplifting the beverage programs and always doing so with one eye towards the kitchen and the amazing food they are putting out.

I started my career in the dark days before computers at a place called Tumbledown Dicks in Bronxville NY and concurrently at The New Rochelle Shore Club.  There were no cloud-based POS systems, smart phones or social media…hell there was no internet yet! Starbucks had yet to expand beyond Pike’s Place in Seattle, the math for giving change was done in your head, and marketing meant shaking hands with your guests, sending out hand-written notes, personally reaching out to local businesses, schools, churches and the community at large, and sponsoring local little league teams.

As a matter of fact, I was a pre-med student at Fordham University in the Bronx, NY when I started my hospitality career.  I intended to go into medical research and eventually hoped to join NASA. But life took a different turn and when my father became ill and was unable to continue working, my siblings and I opened an innovative pizza restaurant on the upper west side of Manhattan in 1982 called American Pie. I’ll share some pizza recipes from that era in a future post, and my love of pizza continues unabated to this day.

After our pizza business folded in 1988, I spent time bartending in local bars, night clubs and even an after-hours joint. This was not the “heyday” of mixology, Dale DeGroff and the modern era of cocktails was just around the corner.  This was an era of quick drinks served with tiny ice cubes, scotch on the rocks, gin & tonics, and tequila sunrises.  But I always yearned to innovate…so wherever I worked, whatever bar I was behind, I studied, and I learned, and I experimented.  Over time it paid off!

After leaving the bar and joining management, I entered the fine dining arena at The Gotham Bar and Grill as a Maître D, Sommelier and Service Manager and focused on the wine and beverage programs.  I loved working with the bartenders to up their game.  But it was not my program, and the GM did not get the idea of adding a focused spirits and cocktail program thinking it would detract from his wine list.  Therefore, I left to become the GM of The Hudson River Club in Lower Manhattan and run my own program. 

HRC was a huge multifaceted restaurant and catering company that catered to the Wall Street Finance set, and I loved being in the thick of all areas.  Most importantly they had a great chef, decent wine list and good bartenders, and I was thrilled to enhance the programs and processes. It was here that I first started making my own garnishes and infusions, house made maraschino cherries, cocktail onions, and innumerable infused spirits to use in craft cocktails.  The program was a hit, and I knew we were on track, on trend and profitable!

I took this mind set with me when I became Managing Partner of Gramercy Tavern on Park Avenue South in Downtown Manhattan in 1996.  Here I had a great Chef Partner in Tom Colicchio and an amazing Pastry Chef and partner in Claudia Fleming.  Tom and Claudia were all in on my program and truly felt that the cocktails I wanted to make aligned with their cooking and enhanced our wine sales.  They both helped me by including the plethora of bar syrups and garnishes as part of the daily prep teams work.  Having these products made by our unbelievable, professional kitchen staff was a luxury most could not afford.  For us, it was more efficient, less wasteful and cost effective than having an inexperienced bartender or manager taking space in the kitchen. During this time an article in the NY Times referred to me and a few other mixologists as “Bar Chefs” for our dedicated use of fresh ingredients, homemade garnishes, herbal and fruit infusions and the use of kitchen ingredients and alignment of food and cocktail programs.  This was the very beginning of my feeling like a “Bartender in the Kitchen.”

It was here at Gramercy Tavern that I began ruminating about writing my first book.  I love to write – almost as much as I love to cook! - and had written some articles for trade publications and first thought about a wine book…specifically a book about New York Wines – a particular passion of mine.  It was Tom Colicchio who first said, “you should write a cocktail book…you’re so good at it!”  So…I did! And the rest as they say is history!

After leaving Gramercy in 2003 and founding my consulting firm, Mautone Enterprises, I began writing in earnest.  A year later in December 2004 “Raising the Bar, Better Drinks, Better Entertaining” was published by Artisan Publishing. I continued to write articles, mostly for trade publications.  However, I was also newly married, had a baby on the way and needed to focus on consulting clients and earning a living.  Thankfully Mautone Enterprises took off and I never really had to market or push for new business, but my focus was on my paying clients and writing took a back seat.  In 2018 my publisher Artisan and I put out the first book in a small series of cocktail books that did well out of the gate and still do well today.  Now after moving from NYC to the Pacific Northwest, I am all in on writing a few more books and this Substack.

Check out my Substack “Bartender In The Kitchen.” In Bartender in the Kitchen, I intend to regal you with stories from my long career, interviews of some of the most intriguing and influential people & characters in the hospitality industry, provide you with an integrated approach to home entertaining - aligning your cocktails, wine and dinner into a cohesive flow, provide recipes from my stock of a gazillion cocktail recipes, talk barbecue (I am a certified KCBS and PNWBA judge, and certifiable BBQ junkie!), revue some wines, review some cocktail bars and coffee bars, and so much more. 

One thing I can assure you…I do not give negative reviews or comments about any brand, any bar, any restaurant or any person.  I have staked my entire career and my lifelong reputation on my personal Core Values and caring for those I work with.  Therefore, I live by the credo that if you cannot say something nice don’t say anything!