Girl on Guy with Aisha Tyler - girl on guy 190: michael voltaggio

Episode Date: June 24, 2015

join chef michael voltaggio of ink, ink sack and top chef and aisha as they discuss self-startership, self-sufficiency, self-isolation, self-immolation and self-destruction. plus michael isn't in this to make friends. he's here to make food. girl on guy wants your hands up and utensils down.

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Visit the art of charm podcast.com or find the art of charm in iTunes or Stitcher and start taking your life to the next level. The art of charm. Check it out. All right, this episode of the show is with chef Michael Voltageo, who you may know, you may remember from Top Chef, where he won the sixth season beating out his brother, Brian Voltajio, in what was a nail-fucking biter. And very exciting, obviously, with the added intro.

of having two brothers who were both very talented to compete against each other. He is a very interesting guy, came to being a chef in a unique way, cooks sensational food I've eaten at his restaurant here in LA, Inc. many times. And he's also got another smaller kind of takeout restaurant around the corner called Ink Sack, a sandwich store. But a sandwich shop. He's got a brand new show out now. It's called Breaking Borders. And it's all about bringing people together through food. And he is a really, really interesting guy. You know, chefs can be pretty complex personalities. Mercurial, tortured, critical, self-critical. And if you did watch that season of Top Chef, you know that he came across as being a pretty intense personality, but it was great to kind of unpack how he felt

about that experience and how he feels about being a chef and everything in his life, because obviously Top Chef was just a sliver of time in his increasingly complex and growing culinary career. He is traveling the world making this show for the travel channel. He's cooking around the world, and he is just doing all kinds of exciting things, many of what you will hear about in this episode. So, ladies and gentlemen, this is Girl and Guy 190 with the chef Michael Voltaggio of Ink, Inkzac, and the Travel Channel show Breaking Borders. Coming at you, straight out of the Girl and Guy Bunker and right into your face. Michael Voltajio, welcome to my show. Thank you. I'm going to put this really close to you. There you go.

I'm very excited to have you. Very excited to have you here. And I don't want to, I don't want to creep you out, but I'm definitely a fan. I mean, I'm a Top Chef fan. I'm kind of an obsessive foodie, so it's exciting to have you here. I like what you said before we got started, you were like, you know, feel free to be honest and talk. It's not like an interview or this or that. And then it's like therapy.

Yes. We're going to just get into it. I'm going to let it all out. I'm nervous now. No, don't be nervous. The great thing about this show is like, because there isn't anybody sitting there like a observing you, you know, you can just, like, do your shit. And it's nice and long. Like, no one's going to be like, like, the good thing about therapy is that it's only between you and the

therapist. Right. And actually gets to hear it. Maybe they should do podcasts in people's therapy offices. That would be like, cool. Yeah. Um, do you, do, this is a personal question right off back. Do you do, do you go to therapy? I tried therapy. Um, but I, I found myself being too honest with myself. So I couldn't do it anymore. I had to stop. That's what happens, right? Because it's really just a conversation with yourself. Yeah. And then you start finding out too much. It's TMI on yourself. That's what it is. I'm digging much too deep. I was happy when I was like buzzed and shallow.

Well, let's start at the beginning with you because I'm really curious also, and I'll say this just to kick it off. It's not just that you're a successful chef, but your brother is too. And I wonder, where were you born? I was born in Maryland. Okay. Near Washington, D.C.

In the country? No, more towards the city. Maryland is cool because it's between Baltimore and Washington. So you can kind of claim either one, depending on which sport teams are doing better at that time. Yeah. When you were coming up, were you, I mean, this is like a very general question, but it's interesting to me,

how did you feel about food as a kid? Like, how is food treated in your family? I was the pickiest eater in the world. Really? Yeah, for like my mom, like I would not eat anything. I was the kid that my mom used to make me sit at the dinner table until I finished eating. So I would just sleep there. Like I just put my head down right on the table and go to sleep.

I'm like, I'm not eating that. And it's fine. You're going to stay there. And I'm like, okay, I'll sleep here. Yeah. But then my brother, he was coming home with, like, sports trophies, and I got really jealous about that. And so my mom said to me, look, if you eat your dinner every night for a month, I'll get you a trophy. And so I did it every single night for a month.

I ate my whole dinner. And then she got me a golden cup one month later that said champion eater. Oh, that's adorable. I had to, I'm a guy that, like, I need bribes. Right. Like, I need to be bribed into doing something. If I don't want to do it, it's not because I don't, it's because I want to bribe. It's about the bribe, I think.

Yeah. You need some, you need some return. earn on your investment. Exactly. Did your family cook odd? Were you just a picky eater? Like nothing made you happy? Was your mom an odd cook?

I ate nothing. Like my mom made mom food. Right. Like fried chicken, you know, we had pork chop night. We had taco night. We had this Texas straw hat thing, which was like ground meat with like fritos and cheese on top of it. It didn't matter. Yeah.

Like Frito pie. You know, we ate that kind of stuff. Breakfast for dinner. That kind of stuff. But like if there were vegetables or something weird on the plate, like I just wouldn't eat it. Right. I wanted to eat like noodles with butter. That was that kid.

Or chicken fingers and ketchup. That's it. I'm like, anything outside of that or anything weird or anything that was not just normal kids food, I didn't want to eat it. What was there an experience that you had as a kid that made that change for you? Well, I think it was the trophy was part of it. The trophy, yeah. But then right after the trophy, I went right back to not eating anything. I'm like, all right, I got the trophy.

I'm done. I'm not eating my dinner now. I'm sorted out. But I found that, and I think that's interesting about today, too, if you're involved in like making the, food, then you're more curious to try it. And I think as a child, and so I think I got a little bit more curious as I started putting my hands in it and making a mess a little bit than I was interested in it. What triggered that? What got you to start doing that? You know, when I was, my parents got divorced when I was young, and then I lived with my dad,

and my dad was a cop, and he wasn't around a lot. And so, you know, I started making food for myself at like 14 years old. Right. So, you know, I'd have ramen noodles in the pantry or, like, like bologna and cheese sandwich was an option. Like I had all that stuff. Anything that wouldn't go bad that you probably shouldn't be eating was in our pantry. Right, right. And so I got bored with it and I started adding stuff to it. Yeah.

What if I crack an egg into the instant ramen when I make it? What will happen? Or what if I, you know, put... I got really obsessed with how I made my bologna and cheese sandwich. I had to toast the bread, put the mayonnaise on one side, the mustard on the other. The cheese had to be on the mayonnaise side because the cheese goes better with the mayonnaise. And the bologna had to be on the mustard side because the mustard and the meat go well together. And then you put it together.

and then it has to be cut the triangle way for some reason because it tasted better than cutting it in the halfway and it made me feel like the sandwich was bigger so but i was weird like that like and that's how i like i started thinking about food in that way like if i cut it in a triangle i'm going to get to eat it longer because i'm going to eat it from corner to corner versus side to side and so i started thinking about food on that level at like 15 that you said something interesting was that when your parents got a divorce you went with your bad, which is what happened to me when I was a kid, but it's pretty atypical to go with your father when your parents' divorce. Did you and your brother both go? Yeah, I have a brother and a sister, and a sister. Yeah, the three of us went. Yeah, my mom, you know, she, her mother was sick at the time, so she went out to take care of her mom in Florida, and so we ended up, you know, going to stay with our father, but then my mom couldn't stand being away from us because she's like an amazing mom, so she came back, and then my sister went to live with her, and my brother and I just sort of stayed where I moved out of the house actually when I was 16 years old. I was still in high school

when I got my first apartment. Yeah. Why was that? Um, I don't know. I was an arrogant little asshole, I guess. And I'm like, you know, I'm not going to live under these rules. I'm out of here, you know. And so, um, and my dad, you know, he worked a lot. Like I said, he was a cop. And then at night, he would moonlight, like, doing security at different places and stuff. So he was never around. And I was the guy that was like always throwing parties at the house where the cop lived, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And so. Which made you probably pity popular with your friends. Oh, I mean, yeah, because, well, they would pull up and be like, dude, there's a police car in your house. Are you sure, like, we can bring this into the house or whatever it is?

You know what I mean? Like, I did everything bad that bad kids did. So then I thought, well, maybe, yeah, maybe this is kind of cramping my style a little bit. There's a police car parked out front. I should probably get my own place. And so I was in high school, playing football, working full time, and had my own apartment, like, at 16 years old. It's interesting because when you have a parent, like my dad worked a lot too when he wasn't around. when you have a parent that's not around,

a lot of people think, oh, that kid, they're unsupervised, they're going to fall apart, they're going to be a mess, they're going to get into drugs, which, you know, kids party, and I think they're by degrees. You know, you can have, you know, I had a lot of parties in my house too

because my dad wasn't there. But I also think that it generates a lot of independence, which is what it seems like it did with you. Yeah, I mean, I have a tendency to rely on myself a lot, a little too much, I think, in some cases. And so I think that definitely came from that. But I think there's a good, there's a good and a bad dude. It's a double-edged sword. It's like, okay, I have that independence,

but at the same time, I don't let people take care of me. Right. Which I think is like a kind of not a good thing. Right. Right. And even more than that, when you really need it, it's one thing if you're just like you feel like you can get it all done and you can. It's another thing when you're like, either not seeing, not acknowledging, or clear that you're floundering on some level, but you still can't let people help you out because you just feel like he needs to do everything yourself. Exactly. So you moved out at 16 and did your brother stay behind? Well, he, the reason I know, he moved out first because he was 18 and so he had his own apartment and then he got a job offer like out of state and he had a lease and he's like well I can't get out of my lease and at that time you worry like

you're like oh I can't get out of my lease early and there's there there was never options like a lease was like a contract on your head you know what I mean like you get out at that age we're going to ruin your credit and sue you for the rest of your life and it was like 400 dollars a month you know what I mean we spend that on dinner now right right right but he so he needed to get out of his lease and I'm like well that's cool I need an apartment because I'm 16 and I'm ready to take on the world. So I'm like, I'll take over your apartment. And so I moved out of my house and I don't know why it was okay with my dad at the time. I don't know why it was okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's why it was okay. Yeah. But that's also an age when you are,

I mean, look, every teenager is an asshole on some level. Because there's a big part of your life where you're trying to define who you are. And that means regardless of how you feel about your parents, you're trying to separate from them. You try to like, you know, individuate, right? Yeah. I mean, teenagers are dicks. It's like everybody I know has one or was one. I was like, yeah, I remember being a pretty big dick. I was that dick. Yeah. Was it, did you leave under poor terms? Like, oh yeah, yeah. There was a huge blowout in the house. The night I left, I think, him and I got in a fight. And my dad is six foot four, like 330 pounds at the time. And I was probably all of 140 pounds, I think, and 5, 10 or whatever. Of course, I thought I was, you know, bigger and badder and blah, blah. I learned pretty quickly that I wasn't. And there was this whole, like, drawn out thing that happened. Long story short, we got in a fight or whatever, and I ended up calling the police. Oh, wow.

Which, if your dad's a police officer and you call the police, it's not the smartest thing to do because the cops showed up. And they were like, hey, Sarge to my dad. And I'm like, wait a second. I'm the one that called you. And then so they were negotiating whether or not I was, you know, I was going to be taken away or whatever for being incorrigible or whatever. And then I'm like, you know what? I think I'm going to go stay with a friend tonight. And then that was just sort of it.

I just kind of never came back home and it was just okay, you know? It was okay? Maybe it wasn't, but no one ever came to like look for me. So I guess it was okay. Yeah, I guess it was okay in that way. Did you feel after you'd moved out on any level that, like, did you regret it? Did you miss your dad? No, not at all.

No, I was ready. It was time for me because, I mean, you know, there was a bunch of other shit that happened when I was a kid. And so growing up, it's like you can't wait to get to that something else or, and I, what's hard, though, is I still live my life that way. Like, I still, I get anxious, I can't be in one place for too long. I want to move on to the next thing, or I find, like, it's not that everything around me is as bad as I make it become. And that's kind of, I find faults in everything, even if there's no fault. And I think it's an excuse for me to just get away from it, you know? Right. I have

some, uh, something very similar, fairly similar to today, everyone, I'm exhausted today. If I'm not making sense, it's my fault. Blame me. Um, similar, which is, uh, And I think if you have this in your personality, it's why you're successful, especially in the field as kind of tough as being a chef can be, which is like a relentlessness, right? And it's very, again, that's very much a double-edged short because if you're driven to excellence, obviously that can work in your favor. But no matter how well you do, it's never enough for you. And that can be very, can create a lot of dissatisfaction in your life. Yeah, there's a phrase, it's chronic dissatisfaction. It's a disease that I have.

So eventually I'll get over that. Maybe through this session, this therapy session that we're having right now. We're going to work through all of it today. We're through all of it. So you get out, you're working, you have a job. You're all by yourself. You're 16 years old. And none of that feels like odd or disjointed or uncomfortable to you.

Not really, because I think once you start working, and I was fortunate enough to start working in what would become my career at such a young age. I think I treated it that way when I was 15 years old. And then into 16, obviously I couldn't leave the house until I was old enough to drive. But then at 15, I would have been ready because I was going. going to work, and I was working a full work week. And I was working with adults. And so they became my peers and I automatically sort of, I was in that environment that those were the people that were influencing me. And I don't know if you know people in the restaurant industry, but they're not

the best people to be influenced by. So, I mean, you can imagine the things I was getting into at 15, 16 years old. Right. And I found, I found that to be another home. Like that was another, I felt, I felt safe there. Were you working in Fredericksburg? Frederick, Maryland, yeah. It was a holiday in hotel, actually. It was my first job. Rock and roll. Yeah. Yeah. And do you choose that or you just were looking for a job? My dad ran security there at night. My brother was a sous chef there. Oh, wow. And so I went there to bus tables. And, you know, one day, I think it was Saturday night. My brother and the other sous chef, they were like, if you show up to work tomorrow, you can not be a bus boy. You can work in the kitchen. Just bring a chef uniform wear it to work tomorrow. Well, they were both off the next day and the executive chef was working that day. And they didn't tell him that that's what was happening. So I, so I I walk into the kitchen, like, wearing a chef uniform. And the guy looks at me and he goes, what is this fucking Halloween? And he just immediately started giving me, like, the hardest time. Wow.

And I was playing football at the time, and I was a kicker. And he was a big fan of that, the chef was. So he's like, don't do this. He's like, play football, go to school, like stay away from this stuff. Right, right. And so he just rode me even harder. Wow. It kind of sucked.

Yeah, I would imagine. And it was a holiday in. Like, it's not like it was like a big deal. It wasn't the French laundry. You know, it was the holiday inn. Seriously. And so I'm just like, dude, really? Like, it's, you know.

But it was cool because he gave us the freedom to do whatever we wanted. Like, there was a pasta special every day. I remember that was my job. Come up with the pasta special. I don't know what, I mean, 16-year-olds. And you have no culinary training at this point. Nothing. Wow.

Whatever's like the ramen noodles and the bologna and cheese sandwiches. Yeah, the egg. And I did that egg and that pasta special. And so, and I did my carbonara. And we didn't have really the internet that really back then either. So it was like, you just threw shit in a pan and you turned it on to see what happened. And I didn't read either. So for me, it was just, it was natural. And I think there was, there's a huge difference today in cooking than back then, because not that this was like, I mean,

I can now say, it was 20 years ago because it was, but the information wasn't as readily available. So I find that people were cooking more out of instinct and, and there was, there was more talent, and more natural ability, you know, involved in it. And so you got really great dishes sometimes, but you also got some really not so great stuff, too. But also, I think tastes weren't as refined. It's not like there haven't been, there's not like there haven't been fine dining establishments until now, but I feel like people ate what they were given. And I think like the kind of the expansiveness of the palette now of like what people looking for

and what they expect and what they've had previous to your restaurant, it's just so much broader than it would have been 20 years ago. Yeah, for sure. But I mean, if you imagine, like, if you take pepperoni and chop it up and caramelize it in a pan and you add some garlic and some, you know, onion and some parsley, and then you add a little bit of cream to it, and then you pour some pasta into it. Like, it's delicious.

You know what I mean? Like that was, to me, that's what we cook. That was cooking back then. I'm going to make a pasta that tastes like pizza that's creamy. Right. And I didn't know. I had no idea what I was doing, but it worked and it tasted good. And it made me happy and it gave me something to focus on.

Right. And this stuff was just all coming out of you organically. Yeah, I wasn't reading cookbooks. I didn't have any. And I wasn't Googling stuff because we weren't doing that back then. Was there something that, well, that sounds like something you made that you were pretty of and it does sound delicious. It was good.

Was there some shit you came up with that? You were like, ugh. You know, I didn't fail that much back that. Really? Yeah, I mean, it would never have made it past anything. I don't know. One of my jobs was to make, like, the Sunday salmon platter for the buffet, and it was this cold platter of a giant cold poached salmon.

Yeah, yeah. And it's like the old school one, like on buffets. A little sliced lemon on the side and all that, yeah. But then the carved vegetables. And so I used to nerd out on that, like making mice out of radishes and palm trees out of carrots and green peppers. Like if you take a carrot and you carve the sides of it to be the palm tree, like, you know, the trunk or whatever. And then you take a green pepper and you cut like V shape or W shapes all the way around it and connect them.

And you flip it over and you put it on top of the carrot. Like you have a palm tree. Like I used to make shit like that. And so for me it wasn't just about the job. It wasn't about cooking. It was about the ability to create and be creative, the ability to be creative and using that as an outlet. So you're this young punk and you have no training but you love what you do and you obviously have something I think everybody needs in any field but especially you know in the field that you've chosen

for yourself which is like you're confident and you kind of think you can do it. I think that's on the surface though. I think the confidence is a mask for not being confident like for a lack of confidence. And I think that it's not real. You know, it's a persona that's created and it actually comes from insecurity, you know, because I'm questioning myself every step of the way still today. Like I make something and it's not good. Like I know it's not good enough.

I open a restaurant. Plus for me, I mean, I think once you and for anyone, I mean, this probably happens with you too. If there's any sort of, I don't want to say spotlight, but attention on what you're doing, then there's a line of people. There's a bigger line of people to criticize you. than there is to celebrate you. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And so you're fighting that too.

And that's a shitty thing. Like, that's like, you don't know. Like, people say to me things like, oh, you're that guy from Top Chef or whatever, but nobody knows this story up until that point. Absolutely. They don't know that, like, when I lived in New York, I made $300 a week,

and I had to, like, basically squat in people's apartments because I wanted to live in New York City as a chef. And I had, I didn't have any money. Like, there were, like, I would eat the food that we had at work. That was it. Right, right. And then I ended up,

up having a child at that same time, you know, and I'm 19 years old and I got a girl pregnant. Right. And I'm living in New York City. Right. Making 300 bucks a week. Like, it was hard. Like, it was, none of this stuff just was just like, here you go. Right.

Go be a, I don't, I don't like to say celebrity chef. I think it's kind of an oxymoron, but go be a chef that people know or whatever. Right. Right. It's still hard. Like, it's still hard. I, what's interesting also is I think, and I want to circle back to this later, but this era now, and I know you hate the phrase celebrity.

chef and I don't really love it either but it's hard to kind of come up with another thing that describes chefs that but I think almost every chef now feels like they have to pursue some level of celebrity to distinguish themselves from the other restaurants around them I think it's it's it's not that you can't build a reputation without ever doing any like TV shows but it almost seems like if you if you want to vault yourself up just in terms of prominence in terms of sustaining your business you have to sustaining your business sustaining yourself I mean the ability to make real money as a chef. That wasn't something...

When I started cooking, I didn't set out to be a chef because I knew that that was some great career and I was going to make lots of money. Like, I never thought that. I just thought, yeah, that's what I want to do. And it was kind of like, I'm going to go be an electrician

or I'm going to go be... They're all great careers, but they're trades. Right. You know, at that time, it was just a trade. It was a... Right.

And now it's different. Now it's like saying, I'm going to go be a famous musician or I'm going to go be an actor, I'm going to go do this. And the problem with that is that people want to skip the hard work part, the part where they learn how to cook. Right, right. And that's the part that you can't skip that.

Right. You can't. When we talk about Top Chef, I want to talk about that more, but you are going to school and you're working and you're kind of, you're a chef now in this restaurant, in this hotel. And have you decided at this point you're 17, 18 years old, this is what you want to do for a living? Well, yeah, then I was just in it.

And so then I was offered a job to go to a country club in Rockville, Maryland, to be a sous chef. And I was a line cook at the holiday. And at the time, and I'm like, yeah, I'm going to go be a sous chef at this country club. And so I went down there thinking I was hot shit, you know, and so I got this job. And when I interviewed with the guy, he's like, what do you want to do? And I'm like, to be honest, I think I want to take this cooking thing seriously. I'd like to go to culinary school. So I just want to work here for a while and save up some money so I can go to culinary school.

then he's like okay well give me a year but I did this apprenticeship program at this hotel in West Virginia called the Greenbrier Hotel and if you give me a year I'll recommend you for that oh wow and so that's what I did I stayed there and worked for this guy for a year and he kept his word and I applied for that program in West Virginia and I went there and on Christmas Eve in fact they called me and they're like okay we'd like you to bring you down the try out and blah blah blah and I'm like okay they're like when can you come I'm like tomorrow they're like well that's Christmas Eve we appreciate your excitement. I'm like, no, no, it's okay. I'll be there tomorrow. Right. And so it was four hours away. I got in my car and I drove down there.

I worked for 16 hours or something like that. And then in the middle of the night, I turned around and drove back home so that I could be home for Christmas. Yeah. Because I really, I wanted to do something different. Again, I wanted to do something that not everyone else did. And so I wanted to do that program. And so then at the time, I got this call like, okay, we're sorry. You're not going to get in the program this year. but would you consider coming here to work for a year and then get into it next year? I'm like, no, I'm already past that. So I signed up for culinary school in San Francisco because I was dating this girl that moved to San Francisco.

So I'm like, I'm going to follow my girlfriend to San Francisco. And so I sign up, I fly out there, sign myself up for school. And then a month before I'm supposed to leave for school, the hotel of the Greenbrier calls me back. And they're like, hey, we decided we have an opening for you. Do you want to still do it? And I'm like, yes. Right. Canceled school in San Francisco.

Cancel the relationship. Broke up with the girl, moved to West Virginia, and started my apprenticeship. And the great thing about the apprenticeship was that you were going to be able to train for free. You were going to be working and training. And get paid. Yeah, they paid me like $11 an hour, which in West Virginia was like a lot of money back then. I'm like, plus overtime too. Right.

Like I'm like, this is amazing. Yeah. My brother had gone to the Culinary Institute of America and he was like $38,000 in debt or something like that. I'm like, well, I don't know if I can, I can't even say $38,000 at that time. Right. He went to the CIA that's in Napa. In New York. Oh, okay. There's two then, right? The main campus is in Hyde Park, yeah, in New York.

And so now you're set. Now, tell me about, I would imagine that an apprenticeship program like that would be pretty traditional, but I guess all culinary training is pretty traditional, pretty rooted in, like, traditional techniques. Well, that one was created, you know, over, like, 50 years ago because they wanted to be able to bring cooks from Europe over to the States and then train American chefs how to cook, like, European chefs. So the apprenticeship was very much like an old European style.

apprenticeship program. They took six to ten people a year from throughout the world and it's still going on today. So that's very small. That's pretty prestigious. It is. And it's a three year program and then they would give you off in the winter to go work abroad or somewhere else. And that's when I would go to New York and work there. And it was fun. It was tough. I mean, I remember because I'm working with chefs that have been cooking for 30 years. And I came in. They're like, oh, where are you coming from? And I'm 19 at the time. And I'm like, yeah, I was a shoe chef and blah, blah, blah. And they're like, yeah, fuck you, kid. Like, right. You know, and they would make fun of my last name, like Vultaggio.

They would never treat me like, they treat me like I was nothing. Right. Is that something that is culturally common in kitchens, professional kitchens, that chefs are just shitty to the people believe them? You know, I used to, yeah, I believe that. I mean, yeah, it is. It is that way. And I used to believe in that same mentality.

But then, I mean, there was a point over the past couple of years, and this is fast-forwarding to today where I just, I don't believe in that anymore. I think it's, I don't think you should make someone feel like shit to try and make them better. Right. Right. And it goes both ways. Like I found myself becoming that person when I was not at work. Right.

And I think that's when you have to like stop, check yourself and be like, wow. You know, I feel like I'm influencing these people by being an asshole. But these people are influencing me to be an asshole. Right. Right. And so I need to stop that. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, yeah, I've heard. I've heard those kinds of stories from so many people who work in this world. And it's almost like some, and there's a term for it, but it's like, when you're hazed and then you haze. You know what I mean? Like you come up in a kitchen where the chefs are all shitty, and it's because everybody was shitty to them when they were training. And so it just kind of continues on like that.

And I guess there's something to it. We're not something to it in a good way. But there's the aspect of it, which is that chefs feel like, well, if we put out one bad dish. Like, if there's a person out there and they have one bad dish here, regardless of the rest of their positive experiences, chances are they won't come back. So everything has to be perfect all the time. Does that seem like that's where that comes from or is it from something else? It is exactly where that comes from. And also, it's your reputation. It's not like if, say,

Bobby cooks a dish and it goes out to the guest and the guest doesn't like it. The guest isn't going to say, oh, Bobby, this wasn't good. The guest is going to say, Michael, we didn't have, this dish was not good. And so you put that same pressure on them to, you, you, want them to feel your pressure. Right. But the reality is you can't expect them to feel your pressure because it's not really their pressure. Right. Right. Exactly. But then it's like I'm training you to feel that pressure now so that one day when you have your own kitchen, you're going to know what it's like to feel that pressure. But it's all, at the end of the day, it's all bullshit because it's like, we're in the hospitality industry. So, you know, if they send out one bad dish and the guest

doesn't come back, that's going to hurt the restaurant. If I make a cook feel bad and they decide not to come back, that's going to hurt me in the restaurant too. And so I try and feel it. And so I try and figure out ways to keep people. And if people want to remove themselves because the job itself is too hard, then it's not up to me to decide whether or not they should be there or not. That's up to them. And I should let them make that decision. Right. Right. When you do this apprenticeship program, I would get a sense of only six to eight people or six to ten people get in every year that you have a lot of options when you graduate, when you finish. I graduated and the executive chef of the hotel who's a big mentor of mine and he just actually passed away like a couple

months ago. He offered me a job there and I was all excited about it but then the Ritz Carlton in Naples, Florida offered me like a sous chef job again. So here I was again like wow I'm going to go be a sous chef and so and again I was already anxious because I had been within that resort for three years and so I wanted to get away and I remember going up to Peter Timmons my chef at the time's office and him saying to me, I said, you know, I appreciate, I'd love to stay. It's an honor that you would invite me to stay here and help teach the next class and blah, blah, blah, but I need to go try something new. And he said, okay, but eventually one day you're going to wake up and realize you're not the student anymore. You're the teacher.

Are you ready for that? Yeah. And it's like those words, like, still, like, they haunt me, you know. They're in my head. I hear him say that every time I make a decision. And I'm not. The answer's like you're never ready, you know? Because if you stop being a student, you know, they're not.

then you're going to stop having something to offer to students because you're not learning anymore. Right. And so it's such a weird thing to say to somebody, but it made such a huge impact. And so I took the job and I left. Yeah. How did you?

And how did you? So again, like, there's this like kind of continual, ongoing traditionalism and all the cooking that you're doing. Your food is not traditional. I mean, stylistically, in any way. But you're coming through these very traditional kitchens. And I have stayed at Ritz-Carlton's and I've eaten at Ritz-Carlton's and they were very kind of like old Europeans in their food.

Well, the thing that happened to me at the Ritz Carlton was, so I was working in the grill room, which was the steakhouse, and then next door, and the Ritz Carlton used to have a brand of restaurants called the dining room, which was like their signature restaurants. And they used to bring chefs from France over to make these amazing, you know, two, three-star Michelin restaurants. And so I was working in the American restaurant as the sous chef, and then the chef left, and I became the chef of that restaurant.

Wow. But sharing the same line was a chef, name Arnaud Berthelier, who came from like Duques. I mean, his, his career was amazing. And so I would look out of the corner of my eye and see the stuff he was putting on the plate. And he was cooking suveed. This was back in 2002, you know, where you had to lie about it. Like, you never wrote on the menu, cook suveed because you didn't want anyone to know because you were afraid you were going to get in trouble. Right. And so I'm like, I want to go learn what that guy's doing. And so I went to the executive chef of the hotel and I'm like, look, I want to take a pay cut and go be a line

cook and work for that guy. And he's like, you know, you've never really asked us for anything since you've been here. He's like, why don't you keep your salary? And I was making, I don't remember how much at the time, it doesn't matter. But he's like, why don't you go over there? Because he's, you know, he's French. There's that communication problem. You know, you can help, help him be more organized and make the restaurant because he just was an artist and a genius. And so he would disappear into that mode. And so together, it was productive and we were making this amazing stuff. And I got to learn from this guy who is still to this day the best cook I've ever stood next to in a kitchen. And he was doing things 10 years ago that today you'd be like, that's so cutting edge. Right. Right. A lot of that

stuff came from him. And then after that, I wanted to, I, so Arnaud left. After 9-11, he, there was, it was hard to get visas and stuff for me. And so he ended up moving to Egypt. And I got his job. Wow. And so now I'm the young American 24-year-old chef of the dining room at the Ritz Carlton, the French restaurant. Right. With no.

No French training. No, except for what I had to experience with Arnaud. And so I'm like, all right, I'll do it. And so then I had to teach myself how to be creative on that level. And so I just put my head down and did it. What did you do? Was it just about coming to work every day? Because I always wonder about with chefs like, you know, a lot of it is intuitive.

And a lot of it is like kind of knowing what you want and how to create a certain profile, and being able to execute. But I imagine that there's a lot of experimentation that continues to go on. It's not like you learn everything you're ever going to learn in your educational experience. I would buy books and I would read the names of the dishes and I would look at the pictures, but I would not read the recipes because I felt like if I didn't read the recipes, then I wouldn't be cheating. And so I would look at the dish, read the description.

and then try and figure it out. And then sometimes I would not like copy off the exact dishes or anything like that, but like, oh, Passion Fruit and Lobster. Like I remember Pierre Gagnet, I think it was his book that had Passion Fruit and Lobster, I think it was. And I'm like, wow, that's really interesting. And it's like, it makes sense because Passion Fruit's sour. And sometimes you put lemon and seafood together.

So maybe it's going to work. And so I'll poach a lobster and I'll put some Passion Fruit and some butter sauce together and put it on the lobster. And all of a sudden, you're like, wow, that's really good. And so you start, some of this stuff makes sense because you start to like rationalize it, you know. Why does that work? You know, why does peanut butter and jelly work? And then you start thinking of things that are like peanut butter and jelly.

Something nutty with something sweet. Well, how can I use that, you know? Right, right. So then grapes and capers like or, you know, grapes and capers and hazelnuts. You've got nutty, salty, sweet all together. And so you start thinking that way because you start asking yourself questions. Right, right. Did you rework their menu?

Were you, or was it something where you were stepping into a place where it was really established? Or did you have a lot of influence on the food that came out of that kitchen? I had to write my own menu. Oh, your own brand new menu. When you become the chef of that restaurant, you have to be, it's your now, now you're the guy. You're like, your name is on the bottom of the menu. Chef to Cuisine, Michael Voltaugio. Right, right.

And so you're now the guy that is in the kitchen cooking the food for those people that are coming in and spending ridiculous amounts of money to eat this food. I guess because it was a hotel. I was thinking, oh, maybe they had some kind of special, like some set of programs. No, there wasn't like a binder of like, yeah, you need to make page 34 today. Yeah, yeah. Back then, the Ritz Carlton, they were all about with those signature restaurants getting chefs and putting those chefs in charge of those restaurants. Did you ever wake up one morning and go, my, oh my God, I can't do this?

Every day. I do that now, though. I do that now. Yeah, yeah. And then from there, well, so then I started applying to, like, go do stages and places. And so. Stages for people that don't know. Go work for free.

and another restaurant to learn. Like three months, something like that. Yeah, a short period of time, a month to three months or whatever. A lot of times you do it to try out for a job somewhere too. And so at the time, the hotel executive chef, the restaurant that I was in charge of closed for a couple months every summer because it was Florida. So I'm like, I'm going to go and work at the French laundry for a couple months. And so I ended up getting a stage there and going to hang out there.

And the chef of the hotel, I was like, we need to change this restaurant. because it's too stuffy and we need to now it's time like it's happening and people want to yeah we got a young chef we want to flip it up and yeah and he was like okay uh when you get back from your stage we'll work on changing in the restaurant we'll change the art and we'll flip it around blah blah blah so i go and i do my stage and i come back and nothing's happening and there and so i go to the chef and what what's going on like you said we were going to change something and i'm going off on this stage you let me go to go learn something from one of the best restaurants in the world and now we're not doing anything Mm-hmm.

So I got mad, and I went into the restaurant, and I ripped all the furniture off the walls. I ripped out, like, the banquettes. I took them apart, and then I went up to the roof level of the hotel is called the club level, and that's like the fancy level. Yeah. That's where the free, they give the free shit away. Yeah, and so I took furniture from up there, and I brought it down, and I built a little reception room in the front of the restaurant out of the furniture that I stole from the top of the Ritz Carlton, and I brought it down to the own. So then I went into his office and I said, can I talk to you for a second? Can you come in here? And I said, look, this didn't cost anything.

Like, look, I just renovated the restaurant. Now, just change the paintings and change the name and I'll cook different food. Like, it's easy. Right. And he's like, okay, I got it. I get it. I get it. We're going to do it.

And I was like, somebody told me once, if you're not one step away from getting fired, you're not doing your job. And so I thought this guy's either going to fire me or support it. And he supported it, but then a month went by again. He didn't do anything. Right. So I went and I said, you promised me. Right. Now I'm quitting.

Yeah, I'm done. And so then I quit, and then he told everyone he fired me. Oh, of course she did. And all my mentors were sort of connected at that time. So I called my brother and I was like, Brian, look, I need a job. Like, I'm in the shit. And so he was working for Charlie Palmer at the time. And so then I flew out to California, I met with Charlie Palmer.

And Charlie Palmer gave me the job as executive chef of his restaurant in Hildsburg, which was at the Hotel Halesburg. Oh, which I've eaten in that restaurant before, the dry creek kitchen. Yes, yes. So in 2004, I think it was. I got the position as chef of that restaurant working for Charlie Palmer. And that's where I got my first Michelin. I got a Michelin Star there when I was like 25 or 26 years old. That's extraordinary.

Especially, well, so many reasons because I think people think about Michelin Stars going to restaurants that again have like very formal, traditional styles of cooking. I mean, maybe just because Michelin is a French company. But the cooking there was very California. I mean, radical and interesting, but, you know, I think, like, more, I mean, I'm trying to think of when I ate there and what I had. I remember really loving it, but I don't remember thinking it wasn't like, you know, with, what did it, I think of that three brothers restaurant. You know, I mean, it wasn't like a French laundry. It was much more kind of kind of. Casual. It was like a wine cave and Charlie's, Charlie's like America's chef. I mean, Charlie's food is. But yeah, you know what I mean? Yeah, it was really rugged. It was more muscular, the food there. For sure. But Charlie's a big guy. Yeah. So, but again, I had the same kind of Charlie is such a man, like he's such an amazing guy and he taught me how to be a chef. Like there was more to just being a chef because there's a being a cook and being a chef, you know, and I think I'm a pretty solid cook.

But I was never really good at being a chef because, again, I went to work with Arnault and I started learning like it's all about the food. It's about the food. It's not about anything else, just cooking. And then you start forgetting about all the business aspect of it. Right. And so Charlie really taught me that and taught. me to listen to the people you're cooking for. Like, you're not cooking for yourself. Right. And so we butted heads a lot, you know, and I would, I came in again and I changed the whole menu one night. Uh, the walk-in refrigerator, like I wanted to renovate it and I didn't like the shelves in it. And so at like two o'clock in the morning, I ripped all the shells out and threw it in the hallway. And I went to the front office behind the front desk of the hotel that the restaurant was in.

And I took shelves from back there and put them in my walk in because I'm like, you guys are storing food on these disgusting shelves and you're storing boxes and papers on these brand new shelves. Right. Why don't you get some more disgusting shelves for the papers and files? And let me put the food on the clean night shells. Right. But Charlie, yeah, and then we worked, yeah, we worked together for, actually I'm going to dinner with Charlie tonight. Oh, nice.

Yeah, and then he's in town tomorrow and I don't know if time has anything to do with it, but in Santa Monica to do a little thing, a conversation about his new cookbook that just came out. So Charlie, you know, those relationships are for life. Right, right. It's a small community. I mean, and when you're in that neighbor, like when you're, when you're, you're, in that neighbor, like, when you were. when you're in that company, like, it's important to maintain, you know, and I have so much respect for everyone. I've gotten to work. Jose Andres is another one because after that, um, you went to bizarre, right? Well, no, after that, so I was married and had two kids, now two kids, living in Northern California.

And my wife wasn't too stoked about living there. And so we, uh, I was invited to go back to the greenbriar by my mentor to, they were going to build me now my own sort of restaurant within the resort, with this ridiculous budget, like designing the stove with, company called Maltini, which is like the Rolls Royce of Stoves, go to Spain, make the China at Mongatina, which is where the plates were made for El Bui at the time. Wow. And just they were whatever you want. I go back.

I quit with, you know, I'd leave Charlie on good terms and I go back to West Virginia to now, make my family happy and start setting up that sort of, you know, infrastructure for ourselves. Well, the hotel then goes through like financial crisis and this becomes for sale and blah, blah, blah. And so I run this restaurant that's amazing for like, seven or eight months. Oh, wow. And then they shut it down. Oh, brutal. And so now what also happens is the Food and Beverage director, the president of Food and Beverage, was the chef that told people he fired me from the Ritz Carlton. So now I'm crossing pass with this guy again. Oh my God. And so I go into his office and he's like, we're not going to open, re-open the restaurant after the season, you know, blah, blah, blah. It's not the type of dining we should

have here. And I'm like, okay. And at this point, I'm already like, man, this guy's just been waiting to get back at me. So I looked at him. I'm like, you know what? I'm going to go home and think about this for a couple of days and decide whether or not I want to come back to work. So I just walked out of the office and went home. Yeah. And then and then I came back and sort of just kind of camped out and walked around and didn't do much in the hotel because I didn't have anything to do. My restaurant wasn't open and I wasn't inspired to. I didn't want to. I was, again, I'm like, this is not what I want to do. I was getting anxious again. And that's when I got a call from Jose Andres. And at the time, I was teaching myself to cook, not what experimental food or whatever, but just cooking food, like what, you know, El Bui was cooking. And that, that time, Faran Adria was the biggest. influence on chefs, I think, because he had done something new and different. He became the modern day scoffier. Like, he became the new standard. Am I talking too much? No, I love it. This is your hour. I'm really interested. And so I go and I make lunch for Jose at mini bar, Cafe Atlanoco. Is that an audition? Basically, yeah. So they're like, come down and make lunch for Jose. So I go down there and I try and

cook food like Albuoy-style food for Jose Andres. And so. So Jose says, you know, I really like the food that you, and I did a few different things. And, you know, I had been cooking sousvied with Arnaud for so long that I had a really good foundation of that type of cooking too, like French mixed with now the modern Spanish cooking. And so Jose's like, you know, your food is good and everything, but we can teach you how to do all the things that you're doing the right way. Wow. And I'm like, well, that's kind of a mean thing to say. But then I'm like, but I can check my ego right now and say to myself, well, he's right. Right.

I know, I know like how to do the stuff that I'm doing, but I don't know really why. And so I'm not going to be able to expand on this much. And so I need to go and learn what Jose Andres knows and what Rubin and Katsuya, the guys that worked with Jose at the time, what they know. I need to go work with those guys. And so I thought I was applying for Sam, which is a small part of Bazaar behind Bazaar. And I thought I was going to be the chef of a 50, you know, cover a night restaurant and Jose goes, no, you're going to be the chef of Bazaar. Wow.

I said, okay, yeah, what's bizarre? You know, it's a 200 plus seat restaurant. Yeah. And I'm like, chef, I've never done that before, you know? And he's like, it's the same job. I'll just build you a bigger kitchen and give you more cooks. And I'm like, this guy is crazy and I want to be just like him. Right.

So I went back to West Virginia, packed up my shit, flew to Los Angeles. Angeles kind of like not left my family behind but like okay I'm gonna go get us established yeah yeah yeah we'll come out later or whatever and and and then it was working with Jose like just changed everything it was like then there was anything was possible like everything was possible you know we're gonna do mini bar mini bar was a restaurant that did 12 people a night but we're gonna do this food and serve it to 400 people right to me I'm like well then the creative process became not just about the creating the food but being able to

create it and perfect it and do it on such a large scale. So now I'm going to learn more about business. I'm going to learn more about being a chef again. Right. And the cooking part came with it because the foodie was cooking was amazing back then. You know, it still is amazing. Yeah. And that menu is very distinctive. People who are listening, not eaten there, which I imagine is most people. There's like a really highly molecular side of the menu, which is like all kinds of things we imagined, you know, like olive puree that looks like olives and tastes like olives. And there's a cheese stick that's on a piece of bread that's, like, filled with air. And there's all these really exciting, kind of, like, innovative things on that menu.

And then there's a very traditional Spanish side of the menu. So when you came there and you're the chef, you're the chef to, he's the chef to cuisine, and he's executive of your chef's the owner. It's his restaurant. Okay. It's his food, but we are executing his vision. Right. So, and he's telling you, I'm going to teach you how to do all the things that you already know how to do.

And I'm going to teach you to do the better. So there's like an obviously there's an Illinois humility there. But are you pitching things back to him? Absolutely. There was a collaborative effort in that company that still goes on today. Jose's company is called Think Food Group. And there's a reason for it because it's a think tank of chefs. Behind Jose is a great team. And I think that's behind anyone that's doing something great. Also something on the scale he's doing it because he's got so many restaurants everywhere. And you can't execute that on your own, obviously. Because I think at one point you have to, you have to be able to hire your own boss. You know, you have to be able to hire people that. that you can trust to give you good advice or people that are going to bring something to the table that you've, like you've set the table. Now it's, now it's a big giant potluck. Like somebody, everyone has to bring a dish to the table. Right. Right. And you have to bring it knowing that the credit's going to go to the person whose restaurant it is because it's in their restaurant.

Right. Right. Right. But Jose was always very humble with us. You know, it was always, he always introduced us to everyone. He always treated us like we were equals. Like we were part of his family. Jose treated, treats his chefs like they're part of his family. And so, and he spoke Spanish to me a lot, which was weird because he would start yelling at me in Spanish. And I'd stop him, be like, Jose, I don't speak Spanish. And he would say to me, oh, sorry, I forgot. You know, you cook. Voltaio, you cook like a Spanish. So, like, he was like complimenting me when he was yelling at me. Right.

Because, you know, because we connected through food, you know, and he let me cook food. And I thought that was huge that this guy, not only was going to let me execute his vision, but he was interested in what mine was too. Right. What would he yell about? What would you guys disagree about? I mean, when you're opening a restaurant like Bazaar, and, you know, I thought, like, for instance, I remember one night, Paolo Gussol was coming in, the Laker. And I wanted, Jose was like, all right, Powell's coming in.

You know, I want to show him something amazing. And so I was going to make tortilla spaniola for Pao, but I was going to do a large one. It's like an omelet with lots of yummy things inside. With potatoes and onions, caramelized. And so it's very traditional in Spain. and normally they're made pretty small because the technique of cooking it is very precise. And so I got this idea.

I'm really going to impress Powell and some of the Lakers and Jose is going to think this is amazing. I'm going to make tortilla spaniola, but I'm going to make a big one. So I make it and I send it out. And Jose comes back and starts like, the best tortilla spaniol master of spin does not even make the tortilla this size.

Like starts like, and like, but I knew it was perfect. Right. I knew. Because he wasn't telling you it wasn't good. No, he didn't. He just said, but he was right because I didn't ask him his permission if I could do that. I just did it, you know, and it wasn't about, at that moment, I knew, like, it wasn't about

what was right or wrong. It was a respect thing, you know? What if it wasn't? Like, what if I sent it out? And Jose is out there with one of the stars of the Lakers, who's also from Spain, and it wasn't perfect. Right. The guy's not going to say, again, oh, wow, that Michael kid doesn't make a lot.

a good tortilla. It's going to be Jose, you know, what's up with this tortilla? Yeah, yeah. And so at that moment, again, I learned something from Jose. I'm like, you know, it wasn't about what I thought it was about. It was something bigger than that. Um, I'm, I, you got your, you said you got your first Michelin star at Dry Creek, that you got a second one when you were. No, I didn't. I haven't. No, no, because you had one at the place in Pasadena. Oh, I did. Actually, sorry. Yeah. Well, because that one, no, because I wasn't, I didn't get that one. That one was there. That was a Michelin-starred restaurant that I became the chef of. Okay.

Yeah. So, yes, man, I forgot about that. I almost never know anything about anybody. I maintained that one. But the one I got in California with Charlie was I earned that one. Oh, because they do. They review you every year, right? And then you can lose your star.

Yes. Yeah. But then in California, in Los Angeles, I mean, in Southern California, Michigan stopped coming here. Oh, really? Anything that had a star at that time, you sort of said, yeah, it's still a Michelin-Star restaurant or, you know, you're not, there has a, there hasn't been a guide here in like four years or five years. Yeah, six years. That's crazy,

because I think the quality of cooking here is the best that it has ever been. Michelin should come back to Los Angeles, for sure. When I first moved to Los Angeles, I was very clear, because I grew up in San Francisco, which I think is pretty in the Bay is a pretty amazing food area. And I just remember thinking, you can't get a meal in L.A. That was I had fun and first moved here. I was like, which was a while ago. But the food here was very kind of like a feat and prancy. And quality was less important than, like, was it a hot, And there's, it's not like there aren't places like that now.

It's like the nightclub mentality, you know, people roamed around and just went from new spot to new spot to new spot. And that's not sustainable for a business. No, but I think now there's finally, like the, the community here is really robust and people come here to cook. And I think it's more competitive in a positive way because people are kind of upping each other's game. And the customers are being more loyal too. Right, right. They're finding their restaurants and they're going back to them instead of just like, all right, check that one off the list. Right, right, exactly.

Um, when in your, where in your curate? I, God, today my mouth does not want to fucking cooperate. Uh, it's up like three hours last night. Where in your culinary life did Top Chef come in? So is at Bazaar. And Marcel, who was a Top Chef, uh, contestant. Previous to you or your season. Previous.

Yeah, it was the Sue Chef that we hired at Bazaar. And so, um, I think in Hung, who had won Top Chef a few years ago, he was in town visiting. And so they're friends. And so I was kind of busting their balls about like Top Chef. And that shit's so easy and blah, blah, blah. They're like, if you think it's so easy, why don't you do it? And I'm like, all right, Marcel.

Like, you know, where do I go sign up? And so he kind of, you know, introduced me to the casting process and stuff. And then I got on the show because I was talking shit about it. Right. So I went to Jose and I said, chef, I want to go do Top Chef. And I hadn't known this, but Mike Isabella, who was the chef of Jose other restaurant in Washington at the time, Jose had already said he could go. And so Jose said to me, you know, we had just gotten our four-story view from the LA Times. He's like, look, if you go do

Top Chef, I feel like you're leaving a newborn child in the middle of the street. And he was right. But me being, I mean, if we've talked about my history, it made sense for me to just jump and go do this thing because that's how I've made every decision I've made in my life up until then. So whether or not it was the right decision, it wasn't the right decision unless I won. Right. If I went and lost, then it wouldn't have been the right decision. And so at that moment, I had to decide to go and do it, but I had to decide to go and do it and win. That which is an intense way to go into anything.

I don't think anybody ever goes into any experience, especially a competitive experience thinking they won't win. But there's a very unique kind of mindset when you walk in thinking, I have to win. Do you think that that affected the way that you cooked? Did it make you feel more confident or more panicked? More all of that. I mean, I didn't have a choice. There was no option for me. If I didn't win that or do really well, I had just fucked my whole career up because I left Jose Andres.

You know, and I left bizarre. I left the best job I've ever had. I left it. I left the best job I ever had to go do a reality cooking TV show. Right. It didn't make any sense unless I won. And then my brother had to show up and make it hard. What a dick.

Yeah. I guess one of the reasons I was really curious about why you did top chef, although I think every year the caliber and the experience level of the chefs on that show has gone up. You know, I think early on it was like kind of people were in catering or they, you know, they were like sues or lower. The quality of the competition has, you know, was pretty extraordinary. Now people who have been head chefs have had their own restaurants, have been well reviewed. But it's pretty, from what I understand, and I've spoken to a couple other competitors,

pretty humbling experience because I think in your own kitchen, you know, if you make a dish and you don't like it, you can start over from scratch. Even one thing, you know, you can throw it out, you can send out and I moves booge to the table. Sorry guys, your meal's running late. Give us a minute. You never have that opportunity on Top Chef. Do you feel like it was harder than you expected? It was a lot harder than I expected. And I mean, the reason I did it was because, A, I wanted to get money to open, to do something on my own. You know, I didn't want to rely on other people. But also, I was a fan of the show when I went to do it. And so, you know, when you watch something on TV and you're like, oh man, I would have done, like, you were watching Jeopardy and you're like,

it's Niagara Falls. Like, you start yelling at the TV. Like, I used to watch Top Chef and say like, man, I would have done this. I would have done that. I would have done this. And now I had the chance to go and do it. And so I needed to prove something to myself, but also I needed to like all the times I yelled at the TV, I got to actually go and do it.

You know, here's your chance. Like, did you watch Double Dare when you were a kid? No. You don't remember that show. It was like a little, it was like a game show with challenges. And I remember when I was a kid, I went and stood in line for like seven hours. because I wanted to be on that show so bad. Like they'd pour slime on your head.

It was like one of those things. And I didn't get on the show, and I didn't understand why, and I felt so mad at them. I'm like, you guys have no idea what you just passed up. You know, and like, I'm sure the other 25 million kids that wanted to do it said the same thing. And so now this was my chance at Doubledair again.

Like, there's my opportunity to go and do this. Did you... So two things. One thing was actually, Antonio LaFaulso said that she was, to vomit every morning. Like, that's how stressed out she was. Did you reach a point where you were able to cruise, or was it stressful right up until the end?

No, in fact, I didn't talk a lot on the show. I mean, those sound bites that they used to make me look like such an asshole, like they really had to work hard to capture those. To even get those out of you? Yeah, because it would be like, I just didn't want to... You were taciturn. I do remember you were, you...

People can say how they felt about, you know, the role that you played on that show and hearing your mindset, I think helps kind of clarifies a lot of it. But I just remember you were, you were like a taciturned guy, like you just didn't talk, which people interpreted as arrogance or some other quality trade. I didn't want to make friends with everyone that was there. I mean, my brother was already there. My friend Mike Isabella was already there.

I wasn't interested in building relationships. And I did build relationships, in fact. I made a lot of friends on the show, Jen, Kevin, a lot of the guys on the show. I mean, we're still friends, you know. Right. But I had no interest in that. I only had interest in winning. That was it. And so that's what motivated me every single day. I don't care what you're making. I don't care what you're saying. I don't care that your feelings are hurt. I don't care about any of that because anything that's going to, that you're going to do or say that's going to prevent me from winning makes you the enemy. And so this is a competition. Like I don't want to be your friend. I don't want to be your friend. I want to win. Did you have that conversation? Did you ever have that exact conversation with people on the show? No, because I didn't even want to give them that because then that became personal. You know? And so it wasn't personal. It was it was about winning a game. It was a game. It was a game.

that shows a game. It's a game show. Right. And I needed to win that game show. Right. What was the most challenging aspect of that competition? Obviously, being there with my brother was tough. I mean, it was great all the way up until the last moment because we made a deal with each other. Like, let's get each other through until the end and then we see what happens.

But not being in control, I think, was the hardest part because as a chef, you're in control of everything. You make your dishes, you create, you decide where your ingredients are coming from, you charge the prices, whatever it is. Like you're in control. And so now you lose control and you have no telephone or access to the outside world. You're not watching TV. You're not, you're just in your own head. And somebody else is in control of the decisions you're going to make because they're setting up the challenges for you. And you have to cook to their challenge as opposed to cooking what you feel like cooking. Right. So it changed it. It made me learn to understand better my. customer and my guest because now I have to listen to what they want and give them what they want and not necessarily just give them what I want to make. Right. When you got to the end, you guys get a break between, you know, like the end of the main part of the competition and

when you guys cook that last meal. Do you, are you able, and I might already know the answer to this, but I can't remember. Are you able to spend a bunch of time kind of like deciding what you're going to cook and then honing it and cooking and recooking everything and kind of perfecting it? Absolutely. I mean, you get a little bit of time off, but you can't really prepare yourself because you don't know what they're going to throw at you. You know, you can program yourself with a pasta dough recipe and know that at some point you're going to make pasta, but you don't know what kind of pasta you're going to make pasta you're going to serve it with or if it's even appropriate to make pasta for the challenge. And that's a thing. Like if you put pasta in your head and you get stuck on pasta and then all of a sudden it just doesn't make sense for the challenge, but you're stuck on pasta and you make pasta anyway and it doesn't make sense. Right.

Then it doesn't matter how good it is because it didn't make sense for the challenge. And so you have to be able to, it's spontaneous cooking. It really is. I mean, yes, there is production involved and there's a, okay, start. And then you kind of get a second to regroup and reset cameras and stuff like that. And then you can think for an extra 15 minutes or whatever. But the reality of that show is that it's real. It's really a challenge.

A lot of those challenges are real challenges. You're seeing them how they go down and they're tough. It's tough. Right. For people who don't know how this turned out, he did win. You did win. You beat your brother. Yeah. How was that?

Well, I thought when Padma said, you know, Michael, you are top chef. I thought she had mixed Brian and I's names up the whole time. Like, Michael, Brian, Brian. And I'm like, wait a second. And I saw Brian's food the whole time he was cooking it. And I kind of knew, like, I thought he beat me. I was like, he hands down, he won. And I was shocked when she said my name because. And I actually started crying, which was weird because I didn't show any emotion on the show the entire time.

No, you did. And then all of a sudden, that was. was just that was real uncontrollable wasn't like oh I'm gonna make this TV great like I'm gonna cry it just came out of nowhere I was just like oh shit did I just win top like and then I'm like oh shit my brother's standing right next to me right and I was rooting for him you know like it's like how do you root for I wanted to win but I wanted him to win right and it honestly like it came down when we talked to Tom it came down to like a couple a couple flakes of salt you know yeah down to like a little bit of seasoning that was it well I think when you're cooking at that

level. And I was a guest like chef in season four. And I was not, I mean, the show got like I said, radically higher in quality every season, the level of cooking. But I do remember that there were times when, you know, it was just degrees. Like this food

is all delicious. And how do we pick this dish apart? Because you've got to be critical. You've got to find a way to distinguish between one chef and another. And so then it's either stylistic differences or like you said, like a tiny bit of seasoning or... And the chefs We cooked for on our season.

Like, we cooked for Joel Robichon. We cooked for Thomas Keller, Danielle Ballou, Wolfgang Puck was our very, I think, our very first one. Yeah. Charlie Palmer actually judged one of our episodes, which is tough because Brian and I both worked for him. We had a good roster of chefs that we were cooking for. Yeah.

You win the show. And two questions about that. First of all, did you watch? Did you go back and watch it? I did. every episode. How did how did you feel about it when you watched it back? I mean I felt well I mean I felt cheated a little bit because you know a lot of times

you not cheated like oh like things that you say or how your personality comes off. I mean I was I'm a nice like I'm a genuinely nice sweet guy like I love taking care of people one thing about me is that I'm very generous and I worry about how people feel and I felt like I wasn't portrayed that way in that situation and I mean the cameras don't lie you say it But if you say, like, I don't like dogs that bark, but they just lose the word bark. Then all of a sudden it's like, I don't like dogs, cut. And I was like, man, that guy hates dogs. Like, what's up with that guy, you know?

And so I feel like I was a victim to that a little bit. I think they also, those shows, the problem is that they're entertained, or not the problem, but the challenge is their entertainment, right? So regardless of the fact that for you guys, it's a technical cooking show, they're trying to draw lines. They're trying to create relationships. They're trying to play stuff up. They want to create dynamism. They want to create conflict.

That stuff plays. they want to have a villain, they want to have a good guy, they want the brothers, they're competing with each other, and these people hooked up. I mean, that's the stuff that makes the show from a storytelling perspective. So, excuse me, if you're the guy who they think they can turn into that character, of course they will. We're there for different reasons than the viewers are there. You know, I was on Top Chef to win the competition, and the people that were watching and weren't watching it for me to win the competition.

They were watching it for all that other stuff, the stories, yeah. And I didn't know that at the time that I was just becoming, you know, was like the Truman Show. You know, I'm just another character on this in my own life. Right. And other people are watching it. But now you have a big fat check and you get to open a restaurant. Yeah. Well, then I went to Pasadena. Back. That was when you went to the Lamb. Yeah, because I wanted to disappear because I saw, I mean, Marcel's a great guy, you know,

but it was unfair because he was at Bazaar and Bazaar is in open kitchen. We're in the middle of Hollywood, you know, and so people could walk up and, hey, Marcel, Marcel, Marcel, Marcelle. and Jose was there and I was there and this guy was getting a lot of attention and it was great. But I didn't want to disrespect Jose. I didn't want to go back to the bazaar and bring more of that type of attention. Not that it's bad, but I didn't. So I wanted to go and disappear and just cook food and focus on cooking because then I knew I didn't want to be that guy from top chef. I wanted to be a serious chef in Los Angeles.

And so I went to a serious restaurant where I was going to have to cook my own food and get, you know, and get judged. I knew there was going to be a lot of people lining up to see what I was going to do. And so there was a platform for me to go and cook my food or food that I was preparing and creating and get measured on that and not be judged or measured against Jose's restaurant, Jose's food. It wasn't fair to Jose if I did that. There's also this kind of wave right coming off of a season where whatever you do next, there's going to be a lot of curiosity. And I imagine we were talking about, you know, tourists, people who, not tourists traditionally, but food tourists, right? Like, this go from restaurant to restaurant, just trying out what's hot. And I imagine that taking all that time off gave you an opportunity to figure out exactly what you wanted to do with a little bit more quiet around you.

Rather than, oh, that's a guy that just came off-shelf. We tried his restaurant. We did that. You want to kind of establish a relationship with where you are and your space and what you want to do. Did you know what kind of restaurant you wanted to open right when you finished? I had no idea. I knew that I wanted to cook food. in L.A. and I knew it was an exciting time in L.A. John and Vinny were doing so great with like

animal and they became friends and so you know I saw that L.A. was doing something a little bit different. L.A. was creating a more inviting fine dining food experience for people and so I wanted to learn more about that because I thought but of course I go to Pasadena and work in a Langham Hotel and it's a white table called one-star Michelin restaurant right but that gave me a chance of focused just on my skills and creating my own flavor profiles and my own stuff that I could eventually use for the book that I didn't realize I was actually writing by doing that. And so I ended up, you know, doing that for a year and then getting a phone call from my partner's office saying, you know, we've got this restaurant space on Melrose. Mike Ovitz is the owner and he's interested

in meeting you. Do you want to come and take a meeting and see if you want to be partners in this restaurant? I remember the restaurant that was there was a Japanese restaurant for years. Yeah. And he'd own one in West L.A. Still there. And the original one's still there.

Just remodeled it. Oh, wow. Yeah, there's new chefs there. It's really good, actually. I got to check it out. It was this tiny, like, strip mall restaurant. Yeah, it was like really, really popular. And what's exciting,

and whatever, I'm probably going to sound like a dick, but what's been exciting is that I remember thinking, oh, that restaurant in that space is cursed. Do you ever, like, go by, like, a place, and every restaurant that opens in that space, like, doesn't work? Everybody said that about that. Did they tell you that at the time? Yeah.

What they don't know is that that space is before that building was constructed. That property, that land was where Mamey's on used to be. And that's where Wolfgang Puck first started cooking in Los Angeles. Wow. Okay. So you didn't see it as a curse. You saw it as something. Well, I just think a lot of people, I don't want to say they made wrong decisions,

but there's no such thing as a cursed space. Yeah. The curse just becomes an excuse for your face. failure. And so for me, I use the curse to my advantage. I'm like, okay, I'm going to make this cursed space successful. And it's not to say that that restaurant's going to be there forever, because it could be close tomorrow. Who knows? That's up to the people that are coming into the restaurant every day to make that decision for me. That's not up to me. And so, no, I don't believe in that curse. No. And you are doing very well on that space. People come and eat there. You know,

It's cool. But so let's talk, because I want to talk about your TV show, you know, about this concept of like the celebrity chef and the other guys that I know, you know, that have come off of that show or even have not come off of that show, all feel this pressure. And, you know, I mean, even somebody like Daniel Ballude, who is like a very, you know, is doing, he's judging on your show when he does cooking segments. He's come on our show and cooked. You know, there's, um, I do you feel that pressure to, is, is it more just accepted now in the chef

community that you've got to do this other stuff? I feel like you do the other stuff so that you can be more than a chef. And I mean, running restaurants don't make a lot of money. I don't know who started that rumor. But I mean, and some restaurants do and can. But the percentage of that is a lot lower than like the shot at making tons of money owning restaurants is probably more less. You're more likely to become a celebrity chef than you are to have restaurants that make

lots of money. Right. And so then you start to figure out a way to kind of do both. because recognition helps you get opportunity. And so I think that with Top Chef, I don't want to say this. I mean this in the, like, I'm being very humble when I say this, but I think that one of the goals, one of the reasons I wanted to do Top Chef too, was I wanted to bring some serious cooking to that show too.

Like I wanted to show that you can be both. You can be a chef and be on TV and not be a chef that just plays a chef on TV, which I think there was those before too. Right. And I'm not going to call anyone's name out, but there's been chefs on TV that, that can't really cook, you know. I wanted to help make it okay for that to happen, and I think now it's accepted more and more

because there's benefits to that. Right. We can make money, you know, and have a life and do something bigger than just go in and cook in the same restaurant every single day for 25 years or whatever until somebody buys it out from under you because you didn't make enough money to keep yourself afloat. Right.

Or people stop coming in because you're now, dated and right gives you shit about what you're making or or you or you die right you know because you worked yourself today right which is entirely possible in that line of work because the hours that a chef works are and then if you're the head chef not only are you kind of making sure everybody's executing on a certain level but there's all the other stuff that goes along with it all the business stuff and the planning and everything like that is pretty bankless pretty long weeks and i had to learn that myself by just doing it yeah i'm the president of a company i don't even know what the fuck that means But like I'm the, like, really?

Like, when I sign stuff from my lawyers, I'm like, where do I sign? She's like, next to the line that says president. I'm like, no, where do I sign? But it's true. And so now I'm not just responsible for food and for employees and guests and everything. I'm responsible for a lot more than that. Right. I'm responsible for, like, the employees.

Again, I just said that. But, like, I'm responsible now for now all those people, too. Right. Like, I'm providing them a life and an opportunity and the same opportunity, hopefully, that people have provided for me. And that's another huge responsibility. responsibility. Yeah. So tell me that you're you're you were developing a book and then now you're doing this show Breaking Borders and how did that come about? Um, there was a general inquiry like in our info

voice mailbox or something at the restaurant. Um, it didn't really go straight to my, my agent's office. That's not, it feels weird saying that. But so, but then I took it to my, it was, so then it sounded like the perfect thing. This lady's created a show. It's a travel log that introduces, that takes food and people and brings them together around dinner tables around the world. I thought it sounded amazing. And So I brought it to my agent. He set up a Skype call between myself and the casting people of this show Breaking Borders. And it was called at the time, Dining with the Enemy was the working title. And so I was like, this sounds amazing.

And then so I do the Skype call. And then I do what's called a chemistry test with the co-host where we, you know, you know what a chemistry test is. But where the talent or the people work together to see if they have chemistry. And so I cooked with her on camera for like 15 minutes. And then a month later I was in Israel. Wow. And basically the purpose of the show is to go to places where there's been conflict or there's been sort of sides and gathering those sides together around the same dinner table, me preparing a meal, Mariana Vindeller, facilitating a conversation and us talking about why they have conflict and using food as a way to bring people together. Right. I mean, that's a particularly fertile part of the world to do it in because the cuisines are so shared.

I mean, I think I even was, you know, I mean, like, even like the halal and kosher rules are essentially identical. And, you know, even if the prairie you have to see over the meat is different, the rules of what can be kosher, what can be all the same. Everybody likes flophler. Everybody eats hummus. I mean, it's like all the same stuff. There's another conflict that comes with hummus and, too, who makes it better, you know? Right, right. How many countries did you do? We did 13, 13 episodes. We shot it in eight or nine months. We'd work for two weeks and, come home for two weeks so I could still be in my restaurant. It was tough. Yeah, that was going to be my question. Sorry. A lot of work. Yeah. I'm going to ask you a question that you can absolutely not

answer. But I'm curious about it. You know, I know, just I know from experience and I know from talking to you and other chefs that like that's a pretty demanding job. It's really long hours and it's pretty exhausting. And then you're traveling and then you're doing a show like Top Chef where you're away for weeks and then you're isolated, you're essentially sequestered. You can't call home or anything like that or limited to when it's on camera every once in a while. And then you do the show where you're traveling to 13 countries

and you're splitting your time into that in your job. And I wonder if, and I'm also speaking from my own experience because I struggle with sometimes if there's room to be that ambitious and also have like a normal family life. No. And maybe I know there's a question later.

that we'll talk about and I think that's my answer will probably be will come from that it's no it's not I mean it's when okay so when you're a chef and you're serious about your restaurants and you're working that full-time job when you get to do all that other stuff and people say wow you get to do all that other stuff that's true but all of those other things that we do become another full-time job on top of what's already a job like we don't I wasn't working 40 hours a week and I added another 20 right I was working 60 80 100 hours a week and trying to squeeze in another job that was going to demand the same type of. Right.

So you're constantly trying to catch up. And no, I don't, if you can balance all that out, I don't, I don't know how to get to, I don't know how to get there. Right, right. I mean, it's, just because it's something that I wrestle with all the time and I see that it's almost impossible, especially if what you're trying to do in this life of yours is, is execute on a really high level. I mean, I think you could, there's a lot of jobs that you could do where it would be like

kind of a layup every day. And yeah, you go in the nudes, go home and have a beer and watch TV. But to execute on the level, you're executing where you're running a company, where you're turning out in food that is so exacting and has to be perfect every time. And you have to constantly be vigilant about it. And then you're also traveling all these other countries and hosting a show that we're having a lot of creative input on how it's going to look and feel. I mean, there's just like no, there's like no space. I'm always, always, always working.

Do you like that? I think, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, that's just what I do. That's who I am. If somebody's like, who are you? I'm like, I'm the guy that's always working. Yeah. Even when I'm not at, and then I feel guilty if I'm not at the restaurant because they're there working at the restaurant. And if I'm not, like, I'm here doing this, this is, and I get to hang out with you. Like, we're friends and everything. But the reality is we're both working right now. Right. Right. Oh, absolutely. So, I mean, as much as I love sitting here hanging out with you, like, I could be at the beach right now or what I mean? But, but I wouldn't. I'd be at the

restaurant if I wasn't here. But now I feel guilty being here because I'm not at the restaurant. So there's that constant kind of struggle that I'm against, you know? I'm asking you all this because it's something I struggle with in my own life. Like I'm just a workaholic. It's not like I choose to work all the time. It's just how I'm built. And I think people always want to tell you, you should take it easy. You should take a little bit of time. And I feel like architecturally, that's just not how I operate. But the same people that tell us to do that will be the same people that are criticizes for doing it. Right, right. And also, by the way, or we think they're criticizing. Right. They won't even criticize. You know what? It's us. It's us. Yeah, we are. Yeah, exactly. It's in you. And I do feel like

just watching you work and having eaten your food and having interacted with you, um, you know, there's, there's a relentlessness there that's why you're doing, why you've done so well. But it's, it's not that you choose to be this relentless. It's just, but what's well, what's well? I don't know. Like, it's so well that I work all the time. Well, you know what's, okay, so you know what I would say as well? How do you define what success is in that regard? Because it's like, is it, is it the fact that I get to do all of these things and I don't enjoy anything outside of that?

Or is it the fact that I get to do all these things and I don't enjoy anything outside of what? You know what I'm, I'm, that's one of the biggest struggles I'm having right now. Like, why am I, for what? For what? I mean, this is a real, this is a real fucking question. I don't have the answer. I ask myself that all the time. I mean, like, what's enough?

You know what I mean? Like at what point are you or I is one going to wake up in the morning and be like, I've done all the stuff I wanted to do? It's it. And then the minute you say that, somebody else is going to come and do the next thing that you thought you would have done. And then you're going to realize, shit, man. I should have done that. I could have done that, you know.

It's never going to be enough. And that's what's fucked up about this whole situation is like the reason we're, call it successful or whatever. And I just, I'm using air quotes right now around successful is because we're still chasing success. but are we really successful because we can't accept our own success? Like, it's really weird. Well, when I said you're doing all these things well and there was a party that was like, I'm imagining that part of you inside is like, I haven't gotten there yet.

I haven't done the things I want to do. I'm not doing well. I don't sit around thinking, I'm doing great, you know. It's, and I think once you rest on your laurels, you immediately start to backslide anyway. I think the next thing, I mean, for me, like, if I could focus on like how I wanted to try and bring some, validity to chefs that are on TV or this or that or me. Like I also think that the competitive nature

amongst chefs, like to not celebrate somebody else, I want to, that, the relationships between chefs now somehow. Now because of TV and all this stuff, there's this, not jealousy, but there's like, people are so fake with each other. You know what I mean? Like, if everyone would come together and do more good with all the good that's happening, then imagine what we could do. Imagine what we could do for charity. Like, we all show up to each other's charity events and stuff like that. But we talk shit about each other. Like, I don't understand the point of that. Right. Like, if, if, uh, you know, if, if, if, bestia downtown is the busiest restaurant in L.A. right now, fucking good for them. Right. You know why it's busy? Because it's fucking good. Yeah. Like, let them be good.

Stop, stop knocking on knocking people down that are doing something. Right. You know? And it's like, oh, well, I went there and it wasn't that good. But why? Right. Like, when we opened ink, I remember the LA Times Irene Vrabilia wrote something along the lines of like, yeah, Voltajio stands up on the past like a carnival barker telling women to step right up and like take, and it wasn't even like that.

She created that because that's what she thought I was. Right. She wasn't there when I was cooking, when I was stressed about the fact that I couldn't get the permits to open and I have to fucking pay rent every month. And like I was cooking, I was there cooking, working, she writes some shit like that.

But then you know what? I'm like, I can say you know what, F you for writing that or whatever, or I can do what I do. And I did. And I wrote her a letter and I said, you know what, thank you. Thank you for making me not believe my own bullshit. Thank you for making me realize that no matter how hard I work, somebody's still going to try and shit on me and take me down. Thank you for that. And so, you know, I appreciate her for writing that review because maybe that was happening,

but it wasn't me that was wanting that to happen. It just kind of happened, you know? and but then you know and but it bummed me out because like I felt locally I wasn't getting the the type of stuff written about the restaurant that I wanted because I wanted to be a part of this community but then nationally I was getting great reviews like the the you know food and wine magazine and GQ magazine and all these they were given us and I couldn't understand like why why won't my neighbors support it yeah you know and I just I feel like it's it's where we live you know people it's such a LA is such a competitive city yeah that it's a blessing and a curse. Like we all push each other to be better. Right. But we don't like it when somebody else is better than us. And I think we all need to get over that. Do you have a relationship with any of the chefs in this community?

We're talking about John Shook and Vinny Diedelow. I love them. I love John and Vinny. John is John I call for advice on a regular basis. Ludo is a good friend of mine. Roy Choi is a rock, I think, for everyone in this city right now, just because his heart is so big and he wants to do so good for this town. Right.

He just came up to like from, I mean, you guys have. similar experiences that he was like a you know he came he wasn't like had a traditional like background he kind of came up from the streets and yeah taught himself and but i think what's interesting about la is that all these chefs that we're talking about there's the people people expect to see them in the restaurants right you know right in new york i mean in new york it's true too but you know the reality is in l. like if you have more than two restaurants people are like well when are ever going to be at your restaurant so you're like yeah but then you go and but then i think people like like daniel blew or they're like they're not even human beings like how does he get he ends up being everywhere right like

you show up at one restaurant and he's there and you go to the next one on the same night and he's there you're like how do you you know wolfgang puck is the only other like wolfgang puck can do that right well he's like a robot though i mean i don't even know yeah if la doesn't recognize what wolfgang puck is not a serious food town and now it is i'm telling you wolfgang puck made laa a serious food town right right a long time ago mm-hmm there was oh so you i think you were anticipating that I was going to ask you a specific question about your relationship, which I really wasn't. I just, I feel like I was just hearing what your life was like, and I was thinking there doesn't feel like there's a room in there to be, there's room in there to be a person.

And I know that's because I'm always like, if I sit still for longer than an hour, I feel like I'm a bad, I'm like, I'm a terrible person because I watch television for 45 minutes. And I, so I just was curious about, like, how you see your space, like, you know, your, your space in the world because it is so full. You know what I mean? and it's like such a locomotive train. But I'm not going to ask you about your relationship. People can look it up on the internet if they want to.

All right. I think it might be time for self-inflicted wounds. Well, I think this whole conversation would lead up to my, this is the part where I tell you my self-inflicted wound, right? Exactly. I don't allow myself to be settled in any situation. I run away from everything that makes me happy. So, and then I blame the situation.

for for for I blame it on that so for instance like like I have two children back east uh and I complain that I never get to see my kids but the reality is is I made that decision to go right um and you know I then I immediately got into a relationship in in California with somebody and again got a break a break up there and like gone and then jobs like if you look at my history I if anything starts to provide any form of comfort for me or sense of comfort for me I cut it off back to when I walked out of my house when I was 16 years old, you know. I didn't need to leave my house. I had a, we had 12 acres, I had a motorcycle that I rode around on in the yard.

Like we, it wasn't, I wasn't, I was, I run away from myself. Right. And I don't know how to stop doing that. This is so interesting. Okay. So I'm going to, I'm going to ask you two questions around this whole thing. And the first one is, when you're doing it, are you ever aware? Are you ever aware in the moment that it's happening that that's what you're

No, it's always at the fault of the other thing. Right. And then later you look back and you realize I created that myself. Yeah. And so I'm my biggest, my biggest enemy. If you think about yourself, which I do as an artist, right, and you're creating, do you worry when you're too comfortable that you'll lose your drive to create? Do you think that turmoil makes you more creative or gives you more incentive for output? Absolutely. Absolutely. Like if I drink till 3 o'clock in the morning and I know, I have to be on a set somewhere and do something

or if I have to go to work and cook the next day or whatever it is, I'll show up feeling guilty and so it forces me to be more creative because I'm then paranoid that people like, wow, are you drinking? Like, were you out? Right. Right. So then I make some of the best things I ever make are in that state of mind because I'm

paranoid that people are thinking I'm not being productive enough. And I think that that's probably what happens to me in my life, like everywhere. Like, I'm paranoid that this relationship's not going to work or I can't live in, oh, I, you know, Irene's review came out in the LA Times. Well, I need to leave LA. I should just leave LA now and go open a restaurant somewhere else.

But, you know, but it's not the case. It's all positive stuff. It's just I don't allow myself to be happy. And I don't, and then I try and it's not, I'm not like trying to feel sorry for myself right now because I know this is self-inflicted. But because then I go back and say, but don't I, like, I deserve to be happy, you know? Like, I've had a lot of bad shit happened to me growing up, but I've had a lot of really great shit happened to me too.

And so it's, I feel guilty if I feel happy too because like I have two kids that I don't see as much as I should. But that's my fault too. So it's like if I'm happy in LA, then I'm happy being away from my kids. Like it's this whole. Right. If I'm happy running ink or if I open a new restaurant, I'm happy running that new restaurant. Is that mean I don't like ink anymore? Like it's, right.

It's, I don't know. I don't know what the answer is. but I know that, like, I have to get up and go to work every day. Right. And the minute I stop doing it, I get anxious when I'm not working. Yeah. You need to keep moving. I mean, I think there are some people who are like sharks.

You know what I mean? Like, they can't stop or they'll die. Or there's people that are just really good at bullshitting, which I wish I was. Like, I wish, because there's, there are successful people that don't do shit. I want to figure out what they did. Like, how did they do that? Right, right. Because I still work hard.

I mean, I still, I still burn myself every night. I still drink water out of plastic cups, you know, deli cups on the line. I still get Sharpie all over my fingers. I still sweat. I'm cooking my liver slowly. Like, I still do all that and I do these TV shows and I come and hang out with you. And I have, like, I, there's, so some days I just stop and I don't even wake up and do any of it. Right.

But then I sleep. Right. Then I wake up a day behind. Well, that's because you're, you're, sometimes you have, like, your body's like, I'm going to make you fucking stop. Yeah. What's up with that body? Who the fuck are you? Who is the body just hits the shutdown button

against your will? You know what I mean? Yeah. And even then you're like, I'm behind a day, even though you probably couldn't have done your best work anyway. But I feel just blessed,

you know? Like I've gotten to travel the world this past year, and I've gotten to see what people with real problems are going through. And the reality is, is no matter how much I sound like I'm complaining or I'm sad or not,

like, there's actually people with real problems, you know, and mine are self-growing. Like, I create my own problems. Right. And that's, that's just fucked up. Well, we're at liberty to do it just because of the culture we live in.

But it's just, it's very interesting to me because I can relate to it specifically. So, anyway, we know I'm a super big fan, so I'm so happy that you came to do my show. And I'll put lots of links to all the things you're doing so people can find you everywhere. Thank you. Thanks for taking the time out to talk about this. No, thanks for hanging out with me. It's awesome. Really cool.

Thank you. All right, that was Michael Voltaggio. I really enjoy that. conversation. He was a lot of fun to talk to. And I hope you enjoyed it as well. And again, I think it was interesting, you know, these unscripted shows will often kind of cast certain people as the heroes, the villains, the good guy, the dick. It's interesting to hear, you know, where someone's coming from when they're on a show and they're really focused on being excellent and winning. And that doesn't always, that's not always compatible with coming across as friendly,

nice or open. It was interesting to hear him articulate how he felt about it and what he thought the experience was like from the other end, not from the narrative end that we were all seeing. but what it was really like to be there, be cooking every day. I hope you enjoyed this conversation. I know I did. You know what to do. Come follow me.

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