Former mob pal Angelo Lutz searches for redemption

ANGELO LUTZ was looking around his mob-themed Kitchen Consigliere Cafe in Collingswood, N.J., jam-packed yesterday afternoon with his first, second, third and fourth cousins for a family reunion, and he said, "We all know I've been on peaks and I've been in valleys."

The valleys were the seven years he spent in federal prison as a "mob associate" convicted of bookmaking and racketeering.

The peaks are his reinventing himself as a popular "Italian comfort food" chef since his 2008 release, first at a tiny place around the corner from his current 96-seat cafe, where he serves his signature sausage meatballs along with traditional South Philly-style home cooking.

"I'm not on a peak or in a valley right now," Lutz, 52, said emotionally, "but I'm feeling OK."

He said that for him, it was all about family, and he proved it by reeling off the names and relationships of all 70 relatives whose emotional support he's depended on through all those valleys.

Lutz, who tips the scales at close to 400 pounds, is known for performing at a Mummers Parade as "Golden Buddha," naked to the waist and gilded as if he'd just left a tragic encounter with "Goldfinger," and for playing Santa Claus at reputed mob boss Joey Merlino's Christmas party for the homeless.

But what was clear yesterday amid the party atmosphere was that underneath the host's rapid-fire patter - "I'm still Santa Claus here every week when I sign the checks!" - is that Lutz, who often talks about his being an only child, is a man in search of redemption.

After telling the crowd that his homemade "Sunday gravy" and his sausage meatballs will be on grocers' shelves this fall, Lutz said he hoped this first family reunion at his restaurant would become an annual tradition.

"I love youse all," Lutz said.

During the cheers, his cousin Ginny Lutz stood and said, "Angelo, I just want to say one thing: You're an only child but we are your family. You'll never walk alone."

A few years ago, when Lutz was in a valley of despair after he'd been rejected for the TV show "Shark Tank" because of his prison past, his friend Nick Triolo and another investor threw him a lifeline by financing the Kitchen Consigliere.

"I told Angelo, 'We're not investing in a restaurant,' " Triolo said. "We're investing in you, in your zeal, in your desire for redemption. You got turned down for 'Shark Tank'? Well, guess what? Long story short, you got 'Shark Tank' right here in front of you!' "

Patty Arcuri, Lutz's first cousin on his mother's side and an only child like him, has been like a sister since childhood.

When Lutz went to prison, she said, his father, Angelo Luzzi, had already died, so his mother, Helen Giunta, was alone.

"She had no one," Arcuri said. "And she was too ill to travel. They kept moving Angelo to prisons far away. She never saw him. When she was dying, they wouldn't release him to visit.

"I had to make sure he was comforted knowing that I and my husband, Anthony, took care of her every day. He was her heart and soul. It was heartbreaking. They didn't let him go to the funeral."

Arcuri said she's been amazed these past five years by Lutz's determination to make the Kitchen Consigliere a success. "I can't believe he keeps going at this pace," she said. "I tell him, 'Sit and savor for a moment.' "

Lutz is not a guy who sits and savors. He pursues redemption with a hunger that will not be satisfied by what his partner Triolo calls his "off-the-hook food."

As yesterday afternoon grew late, Lutz's longtime pal Dominick Collaretti ran out of Italian roast pig to carve from Esposito's Porchetta in South Philly.

"You want the head?" Collaretti asked.

"No, you keep it," Lutz said, laughing.

Lutz said that he and his eggplant parm will appear on the Food Network's "Guilty Pleasures" and that he will appear on "Real Housewives of New Jersey" in November.

Did he pause to sit and savor? No. He saw a relative he hadn't schmoozed with and rushed over. His first cousin Arcuri watched him go, and smiled.