Tony Messina has run kitchens across Boston and Los Angeles, built intimate tasting experiences for a handful of guests at a time, and is currently opening a speakeasy in South Boston while developing an 8,000-square-foot sports and entertainment concept in LA. He has also, recently, become a dad for the second time. He says that last part changed everything.
It now gives you a different reason to work. When I was younger and coming up as a cook, I really thought about working for me and what my career would look like. But now I work for my family and my wife and my kids. It’s a different level of motivation — you tap into another gear you didn’t even know existed.
That gear, as it turns out, has been running at full capacity.
Messina grew up in East Boston. Ask him to trace the beginning and he goes all the way back.
My earliest memories of food were rolling out pasta in my grandparents’ house. In the very much Southern Italian way, you lay them out on a bedsheet specifically for drying pasta. Every time I look back at where the journey started, that’s the first thing that comes to mind. All the time.
His first job came at 14, working the deli and pastry counter at a catering company nearby. He was hired as a cashier. He had other ideas.
Every moment I got, I would run back in the kitchen and try to hang out with the bakers, hang out with the cooks, and see what they were doing and then try to jump in. And I would regularly, guaranteed, be told to go back to my job.
He kept going back. By 16, he had worn them down. “I almost forced their hand. They were just like, fine, we’ll put you on the schedule for a bakery shift.”
That shift led to kitchen work. Kitchen work led to high-end catering events. Catering events gave him something no single station could — the full picture. He had planned to study criminal justice and become a police officer. That plan quietly dissolved.
It kept getting pulled back into the restaurant and food and hospitality world. And even though when I tried to branch out every now and then, it was like the Godfather. I just kept getting pulled back in.
Messina describes Ouni, the 23-seat Japanese restaurant in Boston where he became chef, without hesitation: the best version of the job.
It was completely front-facing, meaning I was there talking to every single guest that came in the room. I created bespoke experiences for every single person. That to me is exactly what I want to do in life.
The best part of being a chef, he insists, is not the cooking itself.
It’s not actually standing on a line and searing a steak. It’s actually throwing a dinner party. It’s the hospitality portion. I love it. I love hosting. I think it’s the most fun thing in the world.
At Ouni, he could watch guests work through a 20-course tasting menu in real time — read the room, adjust, adapt. He knew their preferences visit after visit and built each experience around them.
I can create a different experience with their likes and dislikes every single time they come in. And that to me is the best part of it.
When Ouni grew from 23 to 100 seats, the food stayed his. The intimacy had to give way a little. He understood the tradeoff.
Today, Messina is a partner at Common Craft South Boston, a chef-driven American restaurant. Running alongside it is The Current — a rotating subset of the menu that shifts every four to six weeks, built around the artisans behind the ingredients: knife makers, fishmongers, coffee roasters.
It shines a spotlight on the people and the ingredients behind the craft.
Attached to Common Craft is The Steel Room, a 30-seat speakeasy launching soon — “botanically driven, greenery and lush hanging from the ceiling, soft lighting, really casual but yet very comfortable, and still somewhat sexy.”
On the other coast, he is developing Pawn Shop in Hancock Park: nearly 8,000 square feet across two floors, a membership club, private suites, a 6,000-square-foot lot built for activations. At its core, a high-end sports bar designed to welcome everyone.
It allows for all demographics in the city to hit us. Whether you’re wanting to watch a game or having a family night with the kids.
Ask Messina what he would tell a 14-year-old considering a career in food and his answer is direct.
Just follow your passion. You’re always going to be better at what you’re passionate about. Throw caution to the wind. Don’t think about pensions. Don’t think about your salary. Think about what you care about the most in the world and do it.
He adds one clarification: “I’m not saying, hey, I read something in a magazine that sounds cool. I mean, if you feel it in your bones, do it.”
Flip the question to a 45-year-old accountant with a dream of becoming a chef, and his answer is equally direct — and rather less encouraging.
Don’t do it. Stay in your lane.
Cooking, he explains, is a trade. It takes years to build a repertoire, develop flavor profiles, learn knife work. “At 45 years old, you’re not going to become a chef for 10 years unless you’re some sort of savant. So now you’re talking about starting a new career essentially at 55. It’s rigorous. It’s a lot of work physically.”
His alternative: “Go be a private chef on the side. Go do something that scratches the itch creatively for you.”
Messina’s definition of a dream job has shifted since Ouni. Having a family changed the question.
I went from cooking for me and cooking for the guests exclusively to wanting to foster a team. I want the team that we’re taking under our wings to learn and grow and eventually do these things on their own — whether that’s be a chef or be a restaurant owner or open up a bakery.
The feeling behind it, he says, is not hard to explain.
My dream job is now helping other people with their dream jobs. It’s fun and incredibly satisfying. When it actually happens, it’s a beautiful thing.