Tag: Jeff Spiegel

Dog FriendlyItalianNew MexicoPizzaRating: OutstandingRio Rancho

M’tucci’s Moderno – Rio Rancho, New Mexico

Gil Garduno4:23 PM

“If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere It’s up to you, New York, New York <” ~Frank Sinatra Jeff Spiegel, the much-missed managing partner of the insanely popular M’tucci’s family of restaurants once described flagship restaurant M’tucci’s Italian Restaurant (previously M’tucci’s Kitchina) as “as good as anything we did in New York City.” That is really saying something considering over the course of 23 years, Jeff and his wife, life and business partner Katie Gardner owned and operated eleven restaurants in The Big Apple. Those eclectic eleven were highly regarded dining establishments, earning praise and acclaim from the dining public and media alike. One, The West End Bar & Grill, was a legendary Columbia University institution and veritable second home to students, faculty and staff. Two chefs who once worked for Jeff and Katie have earned Best Chef recognition from the James Beard Society while one has garnered significant notoriety as a chef, author and television personality (some of you might recognize the name Anthony Bourdain). When Jeff and Katie returned to Albuquerque (his hometown) in 2007, they initially pursued other ventures. Eventually the lure of the restaurant world at which they had succeeded at the highest…

AlbuquerqueDog FriendlyItalianNew Mexico

M’tucci’s Bar Roma – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:52 PM

Just prior to a planned visit to Rome, Saint Monica and her son, Saint Augustine, discovered that Saturday was observed as a day of fasting in Rome.  It was not, however, a fast day in their hometown of Milan. They consulted Saint Ambrose who advised: “When I am here (in Milan) I do not fast. On Saturday, when in Rome I do fast on Saturday.” That reply is believed to have been the genesis of the saying “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”  It’s a good thing they didn’t ask Saint Gregory the Great for advice–especially if they enjoyed eating.  Saint Gregory believed eating–or more precisely the pleasurable overindulgence in food–was viewed as “an ungodly preoccupation with temporal and corporeal pleasures at the expense of spirituality.”  Those of you who enjoy reading this blog would probably be condemned to an eternity in Hell with me. Church leaders of the Middle Ages didn’t just denounce the derivation of pleasure from eating in a general sense. They listed five specific ways in which gluttony was a sin: eating too soon, eating too expensively, eating too much, eating too eagerly, eating too daintily and eating wildly. By Middle Age standards, many…