Daniel Libretti, 43, was a graduate of a restaurant school and had a side job as a assistant pastry chef at La Caravelle, a Manhattan French restaurant. When he cooked in the firehouse, he served up “meals they couldn‘t afford on the outside.” He was such a good cook that Rescue 2 changed it’s nickname from “The Pudding Heads” to the “Mousse Heads” after Libretti arrived because of the chocolate dessert he served them almost nightly.
Libretti spent 15 years in Ladder 203 in East New York. At the time it was the busiest and maybe most dangerous firehouse in the city, with up to 30 calls a night. He moved over to Rescue 2 in 1999.