What drew you to the industry and why become a Chef?
It’s really all I ever wanted to do. I came from a southern Italian family that didn’t have a lot of money but all our riches happened in the kitchen, our socializing- our pleasure it was at the table. We’d eat for four hours but that also meant we cooked for four hours. So this made an impact on me, at a young age all I ever wanted to do is be a cook, not a fireman, not a policeman, a cook.
The brother of the chef at Ernie’s in San Francisco was the chef at the Del Puerto Hotel in Patterson, CA not far from my hometown of Turlock; mind you I was 13 years old at the time. He brought me on at the Del Puerto as an apprentice and I finished my apprenticeship at Ernie’s at fifteen years of age. I worked there until I was 16 and went to the CIA at 17 in 1980. I had never been on an airplane before I went back East to the CIA. I mean this was before e-mail. I wrote a letter to the Culinary Institute, and they sent a catalog. When I got on the phone with them, my mom held a stop watch to see how many minutes this expensive long distance call was going to be- it was a different era for sure! I actually got accepted to the Cordon Bleu in France but I didn’t speak French so I was off to the CIA. The routine at the CIA was no problem for me because I came from working stock, I was used to working hard, I mean my whole family worked like mules. My chef coat has a white collar but it should really be blue! I guess the hardest thing wasn’t the work load but getting the technique down at the speed you needed to have, and to execute it consistently. But like any craft, you practice it long enough and you get good at it. I worked in Florida after culinary school where I opened Toby’s restaurant in Miami. Then I returned to California to open Tra Vigna in 1986. The rest is history.
TV, Napa Style, Bottega, cookbooks- how do you find balance in life?
Well I took a year off of television to open Bottega. I did the Top Chef thing but I didn’t do a TV series. I did do a book, but I needed to as we came up on one year at the restaurant. I wanted to have a book about Bottega that covered the four seasons. It usually takes about seven months to put out a book but we did it in three! I had the whole team involved.
I have children who are grown now, but I do have a young son and of course my wife whom I adore. I try to be home a few times a week for an early supper with my family before getting back to Bottega for line up or if I miss line up, for dinner service. It’s definitely challenging to balance everything but one of the keys is to have a great team, and I do have a great team.
Three culinary highlights:
- I met Paul Bocuse outside of his restaurant in Lyon.
It’s funny; when I was 21 working at the Hotel Negresco in Nice I took the train on my day off to Lyon. I could barely afford the fare but I made it just to hang out behind Bocuse’s restaurant and watch the product coming in, seeing who the purveyors were, I mean this was the place, right? Well Bocuse came out a couple of times and each time looked up and saw me. Then he finally came over and asked what in the world I was doing there. I said, "Well Chef, I’m a chef from California doing some work at the Negresco and just wanted to come and see your place". He asked if I was coming for lunch and I apologized that I wasn’t because I couldn’t really afford it but just wanted to see the restaurant. He invited me in and treated me to lunch- unbelievable! It was amazing, the Bresse chicken, truffles- all wonderful and of course he was so gracious. At this level, as far as the quality of the meat and produce, they buy the best then price it from there. Then of course the execution is esquisite.
- When we cured our first big batch of prosciutto at Tra Vigna and it turned out spectacular. We had $3000 worth of pork hanging –that was a lot on the line.
- When the introduction of prosciutto de Parma came to America some 20 years ago, remember we had no Italian hams here until fairly recently. Lidia Bastianich invited me to a prosciutto party in New York. I was on my way to Italy and I said sure, a nice stop along the way. She said bring a ham so I brought one that I made wrapped up in a Safeway bag. It was raining, the bag ripped and I found out the event was at the Four Seasons restaurant. I was dressed like a bumpkin with all the press there and the release panel with Lidia and the top guys from Italy and here I was with my ham in a torn Safeway bag, Wranglers and boots. Lidia introduced me as ‘Micalutes’ or ‘little Mikey’ the Chef from California, Tra Vigna a great restaurant, yada yada yada, and then ‘did you bring a ham with you’? I had it under my chair in the bag, but I’m fairly confident as Lidia has had my ham before when she was out, so I present it to the maestro from Italy and he sticks the ivory bone into it as is done traditionally, and I’m standing there in my jeans and he tastes and gives the thumbs up- he liked it! So that was pretty cool and redeeming since I seemed to be so out of place.
What chefs influenced you the most?
- Chefs Jacques Maximin and Joachim Splichal at Hotel Negresco in Nice.
- I have had multiple chefs that have worked for and with me, including Bottega’s current chef de cuisine Nick Ritchie. They have made me a better chef as their talent inspires me. Sometimes they finish a sentence that I have started and sometimes they start a sentence that only I can finish but their influence is great.
If you could keep only 3 culinary books, what would they be?
- The River Café London series of Italian cookbooks
- Seven Fires- Grilling the Argentine Way by Francis Mallmann
- The Fat Duck Cookbook –(this is a definite cover to cover read).
Favorite kitchen gadget:
Paco Jet (I actually got bailed out on Top Chef by Chef Lachlan as I had never used one before the show and he helped me get it down. It is a very cool piece of equipment.)
Culinary trends that bug you/ trends you like:
Bug you: Over using anything- micro greens, truffle oil, foam, sous-vide. There needs to be a balance and sometimes cooks get on kicks and run things into the ground. None of these things are bad in themselves there just needs to be a balanced variety.
Like: I like restaurants that focus on a specific region or cuisine, Italian or otherwise. I like to see cuisine focused to reflect where it is from. I’m not a huge fan of fusion. I guess it resonates to my roots.
An ingredient that you’re attached to:
Zolfino bean from outside Florence, there is only an acre of them grown in the world and it’s like the caviar of beans. It is so exquisite that I pay $8/LB for the bean and we cook it in a flask over embers in the oven and finish it with olive oil. It is superb.
Most memorable dining experience:
A few, but one was yesterday at SPAGO in Beverly Hills. My old sous chef is the chef there and he cooked me an incredible meal.
Another was at José Andrés’ The Bazaar in L.A where Michael Voltaggio, the last winner of Top Chef, was chef de cuisine. He did a tasting menu for us that blew our mind. He did the wack stuff but also some classics that were just spot on. He is an extraordinary young talent.
Finally at Chef Giaccone’s restaurant in Piedmont; the guy is just crazy, I mean really eccentric. He brought a Chianina steer over and slaughtered it that day and did bistecca cooked on a rock that he dug up himself, He also salted it with salt he made himself; guinea hen stuffed with truffles the size of my fist baked in clay that he made and then he chiseled it when it came out of the oven, and he did a charcoal sketch of us while we were eating- all 14 of us! To finish it off he took a hazelnut branch and put cups on it where he put hazelnut biscotti dough in and baked the entire branch in the oven. Then you picked the biscotti out from where the hazelnuts came from. Crazy? I mean was over the top!
Favorite ‘elbows on the table hole in the wall’:
House of Nanking in San Francisco. We used to go there when you sat on veggie crates, before they had chairs, and the chef would do a Chinese tasting menu for you that you wouldn’t believe.
A food item you hate to admit to liking:
A had a pork chop Milanese in Milan once that was crusted in corn flakes - regardless it was fantastic. I just haven’t had the gumption to do it here yet, though I might.
Three things in fridge right now:
We farm grapes and I grow a varietal called Ribolla Galla and I have half a dozen bottles or so, house cured olives, and about 10 cheeses from all over (I’m a cheese fanatic).
Secret junk food indulgence:
Only when I travel and only when I get back late at night and have to drive home from the airport I stop at an urban convenience store and I get a cup of coffee and a Butterfinger for the road, it just does it for me.
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Chef Michael Chiarello on Preferred Meats:
“We appreciate what Preferred Meats does for us and it’s been a pleasure to have them as part of our family for 25 years.”
Chef Chiarello turns to Preferred for his meat needs at Bottega. Why? Like him quality, sustainability and service matter to us also. Join our family today!
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