Peter’s Principle: Mastrioni brings attitude, strong work ethic to Las Vegas restaurant

Ken Miller

Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2005 | 8:13 a.m.

Peter Mastrioni doesn't slow down. Not even for a minute.

What was scheduled to be a one-hour interview at his restaurant, Cafe Mastrioni, ended up taking almost four, as Mastrioni constantly went from cooking in the kitchen to taking orders in the dining area to dealing with the new waiter who arrived earlier that morning even though his staff was available.

"I want to take care of this man's salad," Mastrioni said to the trainee as a regular walked in the door. Mastrioni said some of his customers want him preparing their food and taking care of them personally.

As Mastrioni sat back down to talk, his eyes darted constantly to customers he recognized. "Hey, how you doin'?" he shouted to a group of suited businessmen, proudly claiming later that they were some of his most loyal customers.

"There's not much loyalty in this town," said the outspoken Mastrioni, who spent most of his life on the East Coast before settling in the desert nearly 15 years ago. "As soon as another restaurant opens nearby, people start going there."

Not that he's worried. Mastrioni's work speaks for itself, as two Zagat awards and a 1996 five-diamond award from the American Academy of Restaurant Hospitality Sciences will attest.

But it's not just his food, Mastrioni said. He remembers names and details of customers regardless of their most recent visit. And he never brings a pad and pencil when taking orders.

"You give me 25 orders, I can remember every one of them," he said. "I've always had that ability."

There's an unmistakable atmosphere of hard work, good will and family when visiting Mastrioni's Italian restaurant. His wife, Shelley, who doesn't usually work at the restaurant, made a special trip that day to help train the waiter.

Shelley's father, Rick Crespi, who arrived shortly before she did, sat at one of the tables with some of his friends, talking up the news of the day. "I come here once in a while to give him moral support," Crespi said.

When he pointed out that his oil paintings are displayed throughout the restaurant, one of his friends interjected jokingly, "Don't tell him they're good."

Mastrioni worked hard to establish such an atmosphere, and said he wouldn't continue the business unless he knew his customers felt appreciated.

"It's nice to be important, but it's important to be nice," he said. "I never get flustered. You have to entertain people, even when the chips are down."

Never hungry

Mastrioni, 42, grew up the baby in a large family two brothers, three sisters in Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn, N.Y. From a young age, most of his memories centered on food, family and fishing in the Atlantic Ocean.

His mother, Joann, who moved to Las Vegas to be with her son, made sure he got the leftovers from the previous night for lunch.

"My mother was the best cook," he said. "The lunchboxes never smelled so good peppers and eggs, whole eggplant, chicken Parm I never had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in my life. Kids used to do my homework for half a sandwich."

Weather was often unkind in Sheepshead Bay, and Mastrioni remembers days spent in the basement with his friends because they couldn't play outside.

"My mother would be upstairs cooking. A lot of the time, that's all there was to do was eat," he said. "It's amazing I'm not 500 pounds."

In addition, his father, Dominick, who died in 1971, owned and operated the Hickory Q restaurant on the wharf, and Mastrioni remembers days spent there after school.

"I had 58 first cousins, and we were all in school together," he said. "After school, we'd walk down to the restaurant and see who could make the best-looking sundae."

Mastrioni's uncles continued to operate the restaurant for a while after Dominick's death, but "they all ended up getting into bigger things and sold it 10 years later," he said.

The Natural

Mastrioni never worked at Hickory Q, but he discovered at an early age that he had a talent for food.

"I started cooking when I was 13 years old," he said. "I used to go crabbing and fishing by myself off the docks. I'd go with a big net, a spotlight and just pull the crabs off the piling."

Mastrioni never picked up a cookbook or attended a culinary academy or cooking class. His mother was his teacher.

"Just watching my mother cook, I learned how to cook my catch. I'm completely self-taught," Mastrioni said.

He met his future wife, Shelley, at 13 in middle school. "We always kept in touch through the years," he said. "She's my best friend."

At 15, Mastrioni saw something in his cousin's yard that would set him on his current path: a hot-dog cart.

"My cousin bought it just to have it, and it just sat idle in his yard," he said. "I asked if I could use it, and he let me."

He loved every aspect of being a hot-dog vendor, even having to push the cart eight blocks a day.

"I prepared my own onions, sauerkraut and cabbage," he said. "And I learned a secret to increasing profits: throw a bouillon cube in with the hot-dog water. It makes them salty, and people end up drinking four sodas. We used to call them 'dirty water hot dogs.' "

His self-employment lasted three years, at which point "my cousin wanted the cart back once he saw how much money I was making. That's always how it is."

It provided the push Mastrioni needed to open his own business. But first, he wanted to prepare himself for restaurant management -- the nuts-and-bolts side, that is.

"I went to school to learn to fix heating, ventilation and air conditioning," he said. "I fully intended to use it all for a restaurant. I knew there was a high demand for good food, but I wanted to fix things myself when they broke."

Rolling dough

After three years of school Mastrioni opened his first restaurant, Positively Pizza, in Flatbush, a region of Brooklyn. His New York-style pizza was an instant hit, and he continued to operate for five years, during which time he and Shelley were married.

But when his first son, Peter, was born, Mastrioni began looking to move.

"The neighborhood was getting rough," he said. "My son was 1 year old, and housing was expensive. I saw how my cousins were living -- for $1,000 a month you got an apartment with no central heating."

Mastrioni had visited Las Vegas several times before to see his wife's grandmother, and the less-expensive housing and better weather appealed to him immediately. In addition, his brother-in-law needed help running a cafe called Eastern Shores at the corner of Flamingo Road and Decatur Boulevard.

In 1989, Mastrioni gave the pizza business to his brothers, who sold it three years later.

Mastrioni worked as the sous chef at Eastern Shores for one year, but, "I saw the end coming and left." The restaurant closed shortly after he left, and the site is now a furniture store.

'What's a resume?'

With no source of income and a family to support, Mastrioni headed to the first available job he could fine -- without a resume.

It turned out to be Sonny's Deli at the Rio, and Mastrioni was desperate.

"I didn't want that job, but I needed that job," he said.

To say he charmed the owner, Tony Marnell, and the head chef, Steven Baca, is an understatement.

"I went in on bull----," Mastrioni said. "They asked me for a resume, and I said, 'What's a resume? My idea of a resume is "Be on time, don't steal and do what you're told." ' They asked me to make a pizza using their equipment. I made one on my own, and Baca said, 'Hire him.'

"I'm probably the only guy who ever got hired there without a resume," he said.

In one year Sonny's became Tuscano's, and Mastrioni was promoted to manage the pizzeria. Two years later he was transferred to Buzio's seafood restaurant at the Rio and became room chef in less than a year.

During his three years at Buzio's, "they treated me real good," Mastrioni said, adding he learned to spot good workers as a future employer.

"The way someone holds a knife, I know if they're trainable," he said. "A guy who puts ketchup on a steak, I ain't never going to train him to cook."

Mastrioni, never one to hold his opinions to himself, said he probably wouldn't hire a student of the recent spate of celebrity chefs, several of whom he's worked with over the years.

"These guys, their presentation is great, but it takes them 20 freakin' minutes to put a dish together," he said.

Growing pains

As Mastrioni's reputation grew, he became more and more in demand. In 1998, the owners of a commercial property near the intersection of Sahara Avenue and Durango Road offered him his own restaurant to complement their wine-and-cheese business. He opened Cafe Lago that year.

Things didn't go well.

"I had no liquor license when I started, so everyone was buying their wine next door and bringing it in," he said. "I was missing out on a lot of revenue. When I got approved for a license, it hurt his business."

Tensions grew between Mastrioni and the owner of the complex, and Mastrioni finally decided he no longer wanted to be an employee or a tenant.

Five years ago, Mastrioni started his own business at the Spring Valley Shopping Center at the intersection of Rainbow Boulevard and Flamingo Road. He purchased the site of a Tomatoes restaurant and opened Cafe Mastrioni.

The eatery contains two dining areas in one large space. More than 25 tables offer seating for 100 diners, including a patio area with large potted plants and tables with umbrellas.

The restaurant has a Tuscan feel. Walls separated by wainscot trim are painted off-white above and reddish-tan below, courtesy of Shelley, who has her own faux-painting business. White marble tile in the entryway is offset by reddish concrete flooring. A fountain at the rear of the restaurant is opposite a wall-size mirror, which gives the illusion of size.

Wine bottles are displayed throughout, including one on each table, and oil paintings of Italian scenes cover the walls. Three stools at a bar offer a view of the kitchen.

Mastrioni's more popular dishes include shrimp and scallop vodka, penne with sausage and linguini eggplant, and his homemade creme puffs are said to be particularly memorable, as is his tiramisu (ladyfingers soaked in espresso and layered with fresh whipped cream).

But Mastrioni encourages any customer to deviate from the menu.

"I will get curveballs sometimes, and when I get it right and they're satisfied, it's the best feeling," he said. "Knowing the customers come for my food is what I love best about this."

Tight-knit family

Mastrioni often misses Sheepshead Bay and the water (he takes frequent oceanside trips to California), but he certainly doesn't have to worry about missing family. Most of his siblings -- Dominick, 47, John, 50, Rosemary, 48, and Joann, 44 -- moved to Las Vegas shortly after he did, and all live in either Summerlin or South Shores. His fifth sibling, Theresa, 51, lives in South Carolina.

"I moved here, they followed me," he said shrugging. "It's fun when we get together, though. There's a lot of talking, good conversations."

Despite his full-time schedule (12 hours a day), Mastrioni still manages to raise three children with Shelley: Peter, now 15, Jenna, 12, and Nicholas, 9.

Despite the long hours and hard work, Mastrioni said he wouldn't discourage his children from getting involved in the business when they're old enough.

"I don't think this is the hardest business in the world," he said. "It's not hard if you're good at it."

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