Bobby on the beat. Hey, welcome to Bobby on the beat. Make sure you check us out on YouTube, or you can listen to us anywhere. You listen to your favorite podcast this week. We have Michael Votaggio, Chef extraordinaire, one of the Titans on Triple Threat. This is gonna be a wild ride, so let's get it on. You're one of those guys that thinks about food in such a different way. It makes me sit up and pay attention. That's the beauty of what you do. But also, the thing that I really love about what you do is you understand the science of food, but your food is in this incredible, rock-hard place of foundation. I know you grew up in Maryland, right? But what led you? Like, to me, I can tell my story very quickly. I dropped out of high school, and then I went to get a job, started cooking, and never stopped. What's your story? Similar, I guess, in that aspect, but I didn't drop out of high school. I was invited to leave my home when I was 16 years old. That's a nice way to put it. So I had to pay rent. I was playing football. I was going to school, and I was cooking, and the cooking part was my survival. And a lot of people are like, oh, I couldn't get into anything else because I was doing this and that and the other. I was doing all that stuff too, but I was actually really doing a good job at work. So I was working 40 hours a week while in high school. And I graduated, but I missed 56 days, my senior year of high school. And I remember, I wanted my mom to see my name in the newspaper once, when you make honor roll or whatever it is. So my very last semester in high school, I was able to deliver that to my mom. So you were a good student? No, I was a terrible student. I think my GPA was under 2.0 or whatever, but I had this innate desire to please people in everything that I think I was doing. It wasn't ever really for myself. I think that a lot of the things that I always did was for other people. I didn't want to be in the honor roll, but I wanted my mom to have that moment to be like, oh, look, my son's name is in the newspaper. You made the honor roll. And I think that just carried with me through everything else that I did after that. But yeah, I genuinely needed money to pay bills when I was 16 years old. But you were playing football? Yeah, I was a kicker. Okay, you were a kicker. Okay. Of course you were. Yeah. Were you good? Yeah, I was kicking like 50 yard field goals in 10th grade. That's crazy. But like, again, it was this opportunity to be a part of something, a lot like the kitchen. But you didn't go to college? No. Okay, so you graduated in high school, and then what happened? I need to increase the revenue, because my bill is now I'm an adult, now I'm out of high school, I'm living on my own completely. So I got a job at a country club as a sous chef because my brother was going to the CIA, which is the culinary school up here, up in Hyde Park. And I couldn't really afford to go to culinary school. So I worked at this country club and saved money, and then this guy was like, hey, you should go do this apprenticeship at the Greenbrier Hotel. I'm like, Oh, in Virginia. Yeah, I'm like, what's that? Where's that? He's like, it's in the mountains of West Virginia. And I'm like, but then I went down there and I called them and I was like, hey, I want to try out for this apprenticeship. I was 1918, 19. They were like, well, you need to come down and try out. I'm like, okay, cool. They're like, when can you come? I'm like, how's next week on Thursday or whatever? And it was like, that was, they were like, well, that's Christmas Eve. I'm like, no worries, I'll be there. Like I'll come down, I want to see it when it's the busiest or whatever. So I drove down there in the middle of the night. I didn't have enough money to sleep there. So I just worked the entire shift and then drove back at like midnight to get home by Christmas morning. And they didn't accept me at first. So then I applied to culinary school in San Francisco. My girlfriend at the time was living there. And so I got accepted into culinary school out there. Two months before I was supposed to leave to go out there, the Greenbrier calls and they're like, hey, we had a spot open for this apprenticeship. If you still want to do it, come on down. And I'm like, okay, yes, I want to do it. Called my girl, we broke up. I didn't go to San Francisco. I went to West Virginia instead. And I ended up living in the mountains of West Virginia and just focused on cooking classic, classic, classic food for three years. So that was kind of like your culinary school for all the courses. Really it was. It was. There was a program, a curriculum, certain tasks that I had to complete ultimately to please certified master chef that was in charge of that program at the time and then ultimately graduate. So I just kept doing what every chef that I worked for told me to do, which was just keep learning how to cook. And I remember trying to be a sous chef or trying to get this job or that job. And these chefs kept telling me, like, don't worry about the position. You can go learn how to take, do the ordering and the inventory and all that. Just keep going and learning how to cook no matter where you are. And I connect that to today because I think, like the competing part of what we do, now that I'm the chef, like people come to me for the information in the restaurants and I'm supposed to be the teacher, the only opportunity that I really get aside from absorbing it from the different cooks that come to work for us or with us, is in these competitions. I'm interested in the way all of them cook. And so for me, it's the best opportunity for me to get that information. So from the Greenbrier, which was probably making, like, Brublonx and Bezgermel and the mother sauces and all of those things that are like, you know, classic, classic French cuisine probably, right? Where do you find modernist cuisine? I had worked at the Ritz Carlton in Naples, Florida. And at the time, there was a chef there that came from France, his name was Arnaud Bertilier. And he had worked for Ducasse. And this was when like hotels had really nice forward thinking restaurants, which they still do in a lot of ways today. He was one of the people, first people, Suvi cooking. He had the merchant circulator. This was the year 2001. Which was like the entry level to molecular cuisine. Right. And I remember watching him, I was the chef, I was the sous chef in the steakhouse. He was the fine dining chef in the restaurant, but we shared a line, we were in the same area. And I would see, I could look at the food, I couldn't tell you what it was. I would see it and be like, wow, that's so cool. I don't know what that is. And I would walk over there and it would be like a red pepper. But he manipulated it so much into where I was like, wow. Oh, that's what's possible with food. And I think in that moment, I got hooked on that. So I'd already had this foundation of like, cooking delicious food, lots of butter, lots of braising, lots of sauce work. But then I saw this other style of food and then he taught me sous vide cooking. And so from there, I was like, well, where can I go get more information like this? And so at this time now, I'm in my early 20s and I now have two kids, so I need money. So I was like, I need to figure out a path where I can still make enough money to support my family, but I can still go get this information to be the best. Like, and I remember my friend, Sunny at the time, was like, hey, if you want to be like those chefs, you have to go work for those chefs. So like in the wintertime from the Greenbrier I would come to New York and I would like, I worked for Larry Four June and like my off season. And I go back to the Greenbrier and I would like butcher deer to make more money so I could save up for the next trip to go work for somebody else. I would like go find like a local butcher and stand in his front yard and like cut up dead deer carcasses to get paid, but also I learned how to butcher. So I go and I apply to get a stodge at the French laundry. I tried and tried and tried and they finally said yes. So I got to go like stodge there. And I go there for a month and I saved up enough money pretty much to the dollar to like rent a bedroom in somebody's house in Yonkville. Because you weren't gonna make a lot of money there. I made zero money, it was a stodge. Zero, okay. That's not a lot. No. And I had a month to go there and absorb that information. And so that started this sort of process where I needed, like I left, you know, my family and I went and hung out there for a month and just studied as much as I could. Then I saw like, oh, this is what perfection looks like. Like, okay, so now I've got like- Military precision. Yeah, so now I've got classic. I saw what this French chef taught me and then I saw what like, okay, perfection. Like when you're only trying to make, so I'm like, how do I weave all this together in some kind of a style? Like what can I do? So I realized, I think probably not until recently that I don't really have a style, but it was the curiosity became my style. I don't wanna copy off of people. I wanna be inspired by people, but I wanna still find my own path. I ended up ultimately, I mean, I had a bunch of jobs in between, but I ended up back at the Greenbrier. They built a restaurant for me many years later. He went back to the Greenbrier. Yeah, they like designed a restaurant for me. They got this incredible restaurant designer. They just created a restaurant for you there. Yeah, because I was working for Charlie Palmer in Hildesburg and I'd gone from my stodge at the French Laundry when I'd left the Ritz Carlton, I then needed, I was like, I need to work for one of these chefs, one of these restaurant chefs that people know. My brother was working for Charlie Palmer at the time. So he got me a job in Hildesburg. And so I go to Hildesburg to run Charlie's restaurant, Dry Creek Kitchen, and I ended up getting a really good review from the San Francisco Chronicle. And then I ended up getting a Michelin star there. And so from there, the Greenbrier called and they were like, hey, we're gonna build a restaurant. We think it'd be cool to build it all around you and blah, blah, blah. So I went back and did that. The restaurant was open for like one season. It didn't go well in West Virginia. But it went well for me because I- Why didn't it go well? What do you think the issue was? I think I was probably trying to force something into an environment that didn't really work. Overcooking, so to speak. Doing exactly what you don't like about that style of food. And in the interim between moving from California back to West Virginia, I did the same thing that I did when I went to Stodge at the French Laundry. I ended up getting a Stodge at Elinia. So I went and again, I have no money. I have two kids at this point. I'm barely 30 and I'm like broke. I'm paycheck to paycheck. I could not get ahead at all. But I needed to keep spending that money to go get these experiences because I knew that ultimately I wouldn't get to go work for these places full time because I couldn't afford to. And so that became kind of a pattern until I wouldn't be able to get those opportunities anymore. Cause I think ultimately, eventually people will start being like, oh, this is your resume. Why do you want to come work here? Like they knew that you were just coming by to see what they were up to. I genuinely wanted to work in these places. It was my dream. I just couldn't afford it. You keep alluding to that you're worried that people think that you're gonna steal something from them. I don't think about it that way in our business at all. I mean, I'm sure there were some people that feel that way, but I really feel that the business is so generous. The industry is so generous as a whole that like part of you being in the business is giving and sharing. It's what separates this business from every other business in the world. You don't believe that? I do a hundred percent. And I think what was interesting about those restaurants that I would go stodge in was what they did was so specific that you couldn't just blatantly steal it because they're special for a reason, these restaurants. What I saw and learned from those experiences was how the kitchens operated, how they set them up and organized the team. Some of the techniques that I could apply to certain things, but you can't carbon copy any of those dishes because that's what made those restaurants so famous. And I didn't want to copy off of people, but I needed to go see how they did it. Much like I went to SNL the other night. I needed to see how they pull that off every week for so long. And you saw it. When you see the cue cards and you see how the Jib camera operator moves around and the running and how fast they can change the sets, you're like, okay, you learn from that. And so these were the things that were important to me. A lot of times people want to put these things on their resumes, they go there for that. But what they didn't realize was what was more important was how much you retain from that experience. No one's gonna care that you worked somewhere if you can't cook. That's true. Like my father would always say to me, when you go and work at a place, keep the things that you think are incredibly important and the things that you like and the things that you don't leave them behind. I tried to get these people to notice me too, which also wasn't that important. I never worked at Elinia. I never worked at the French Laundry. I did work for Charlie Palmer. I did work for Larry Fourgéon. I did work for Jose Andres. Those stages were opportunities, again, for me to go to notice and get to experience what they did. Ultimately knowing that it was a dream of mine to work in those restaurants, but that I just, it wasn't in my cards to be able to do so. The thing that you get working for a person like Larry Fourgéon or Jonathan Waxman, especially during that moment when the new American chef had this sort of renaissance, so to speak, was that you had people that you looked at as legends walking through your kitchen, literally eating your mise en place off your station, like Wolfgang Puck and Jaya Meier Tower and Alice Waters and Dean Feering and Mark Miller. These people were part of your life. Like you'd be in there cooking chicken and then all of a sudden these people would be standing at your station watching you cook. To me, that's when I knew I was in the right place because the excitement, besides the fact that I was working hard and learning a trade, I was excited to be there to be part of this incredible phenomenon that was taking place. That was the moment. And obviously it's gotten better and better since then. But a lot of those guys went and worked for the French guys. And so part of that was like, it was because back then the information wasn't available. Like you couldn't just go on your phone and pull those recipes up. So we were all, and I'm sure you went through this too, like we were trading handwritten notebooks with each other. And if you got off work and you went to the club together, you get a little vulnerable and then you start changing, you exchange your notebooks for a couple of days. You're like, hey man, I'll see you on Tuesday. Like let me get your notebook for the weekend and you would just swap notebooks. I had many days which went like Saturday night, work until midnight, go out, hit a night club, then go to the after hours club, save the robots, with that open to 3 a.m., come out when the sun was up and then go cook brunch. There was not a lot of sleep in some of those nights. And you would think at the time that you were being irresponsible, but I think that you were just creating, we were creating that stamina for ourselves that it was gonna take to be able to do this. You know what I mean? Like that's not something you can learn. No, no, no. Cooking on the line is like one of the great things that's been a part of me and will always be a part of me forever. Being able to be a line cook allows me to do the things that I do today, whether it's Iron Chef or B Bobby Flay or whatever it is, because you learn how to multitask at the highest level in that situation. But the customer was waiting for their food and they needed it on time, et cetera. And they were the judge and the clock, they were everything. But now it just translates into, you know, a clock and three judges who sit and tell you what they think of your food. But that's also important. And the opportunity for us and even for you, I would imagine at this point, whether you care or not to get the critiques, but it's like, you're still learning from that. Of course. And, you know, I used to think back to even our original, our Iron Chef battle, like I needed to go win. Like the most important thing about this cooking competition is that I win. Only now, recently, and you'll probably think I'm lying to you right now, but I try very hard to not make that the prior, like I wanna win every time I go in there. But I'm starting to accept the fact that that's not the important part of this experience. What the important part of this experience is, is to cook food that I'm excited about so that I could excite other people because I'm doing this. I've won a lot of major cooking competitions. I know how good that feels. Don't get me wrong. I want that every time I go out there. But I also want to give something to the people that are watching me compete. Speaking of cooking, I wanna show you how we made your spectacular fried chicken, Bobby on the beat. All right, let's make some fried chicken with homemade ranch, because you know everybody loves some ranch. We're gonna start off by marinating the chicken. We're doing thighs only, just because I like them. Bone in, skin on, marinate it in some buttermilk and some hot sauce, and then we're gonna make the dredge. Lots of flour, some cornstarch, lots of urban spices, just like the kernel likes it. And then we're gonna also make another mixture with some more buttermilk to kind of go back and forth. And this is kind of the, well just keep an eye on this technique, all right? You see we go in the flour, then back to the buttermilk, then back to the flour, and then into some cooking oil, about 350 degrees. Now we're gonna make some homemade ranch. Crush up a lot of garlic. We're gonna have some sour cream. We're gonna have some dill. We have a little bit of lime juice, and we're gonna mix it all together. I like to put a little bit of chili in there just because I like it hot. So there it goes. I'm gonna fry the chicken up until it's nice and crispy. Look at all those edges, that's really key. A little chili powder on the outside, some lime zest, and then some ranch on the side, because everybody loves ranch apparently. Slice up a lime, and there it is, the BFC. That's Bobby's Fried Chicken. Bobby on the beat. This is delicious. I'm not. This isn't to hype you up. You're friends, you know that already. I care about you, I respect you. This is really good fried chicken, but I couldn't make this in a competition. But I would lose to this in a competition a million times. This is what I wanna get into, because when I create a triple threat, and a lot of people don't even understand that how it all works, but I create my shows, period. And I wanted to create this show because I wanted cooking at the highest level in a competition environment, and I wanted to make it this kinda cool, kinda clubby feel. I wanted to make it about the food and the chefs as opposed to how we could stump everybody. I'm not interested in that. So that's why I give you guys ingredients that make sense together. We talk about this all the time. As you know, I love Brooke, but you were by far my number one pick because you were such an obvious pick for me. And the reason why you were an obvious pick for me was kind of all the reasons that we've talked about. You're a great chef. You look at things differently. You are not afraid to take risk. And it's like a high wire event every single time you get in the kitchen. I know if it's interesting for me to watch, it's gonna be interesting for them to watch. When Michael Jordan was playing for the Chicago Bulls, of course he was a great player, but he literally had the other team on edge before they walked in the gym because they didn't know what he was gonna do. And that's who you are. To be perfectly honest, sometimes it's greatness, and sometimes it doesn't work out the way you want it to. That's why I love having you as part of that team because I know that you're gonna make the chef coming in, shiver a little bit, and you're gonna give us some amazing cooking. And we're gonna see things that we don't expect. I mean, sometimes we're literally laughing on the sofa because we're not laughing at you because we can't believe what you are actually trying to attempt. And sometimes that gives you a nine or a 10, and sometimes it gives you a six or a four or whatever. And you get so upset. And it drives me crazy that you get so upset because the one thing I don't want you to be is miserable. I just want you to enjoy yourself, but you take it so hard. I don't even know what to say to you. Like I'm a pretty good coach when it comes down to it, and I like mentoring people. When somebody doesn't like what you did, especially if you think you did a great job, you're distraught. And like you take it so hard. No matter what, I'm gonna try to win. What you're getting on me about right now, my emotions and how upset I get and blah, blah, blah, I guarantee that you were a little bit like that back in those days. Absolutely, absolutely. So you always joke like when we met. Time calms you down. Yeah, yeah. But like when I pulled up, you were like, oh, you didn't even say hi to me. You just looked right through me and blah, blah, blah. You still remember that. Of course I do. And that wasn't intentional at that moment, but I think the menu that I put together for that battle was. Like I remember I bottled and labeled my own sodas, and I made the potato charcoal from ink. And I did all these things because I knew that I couldn't go head to head with you in the way that you cook. So I needed to be so different that I would get noticed. And I feel like that's the part that I carry into every challenge more than anything else. Not can I show off, can I accomplish this in the time that I have? It's that, will you remember what I tried to do? And if it worked, you'll remember it even more, but you probably won't remember whether or not I won or lost. First of all, I love this conversation because it allows people to understand, including me, how you approach this and what's really important to you. Okay, so yes, you wanna win, but really what's really important to you is being noticed and being remembered for what you tried or attempted to do, right? But not just for the sake of being remembered, but for the sake of connecting with people on that level. Entertaining them, exciting them, hopefully in some cases inspiring them. Back to that curiosity, I'm curious, when you can push yourself to take risks, the rewards can be much greater, but you'll probably fail more than most people do fail. The winning and losing to me doesn't matter. It really doesn't. As long as I know that everybody's giving it their all, I can't make the judge do what I want them to do sometimes. That judge is there and it's their opinion, 110%. So when you lose and you get really upset, why can't you say to yourself, yeah, but that's not really what's really important to me. I did what I wanted to do and the judges didn't like it. Because I can't uncare. Like I can't, I can't. So it does matter. It matters in the moment. What everyone doesn't realize is after that 15 minute fit goes away, that I'm able to reel it back and process what just happened, but it's immediate because there's adrenaline involved. There's emotion involved. I care that much. So every single time I cook, it's no different than like the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl and oh, they were right there and they could have won that game. And oh, that feeling of like, if I would have just ran left instead of right, maybe I could have won. Like you're going through that. And if you're not going through that and you don't care, then you don't deserve to be there. Do you think I care if you wanna lose? I don't think you care about me winning or losing as much as I do, but ultimately I look at you like, I never wanted my chefs, I wanted my chefs to notice me. I wanted you to notice me on Iron Chef. I wanted to be the best line cook in the kitchen. I don't wanna disappoint you in a lot of ways. And I feel, I don't think you care this way or that way in order I think that you actually get disappointed if I don't win, but I feel like if I fail and I don't win, I'm disappointing you, I'm disappointing Brooke, I'm disappointing Aisha, and I'm disappointing the people that are watching. Like you look at me after you've had a bad round or two bad rounds in a row or something like that and you're like feeling down about yourself. And you look, and the way you look at me is like, this guy's disappointed in me, he's not gonna ask me back next season or something like that. Does that go through your head? Yeah. And right now, like I don't really, you're the only, sorry that you have to have this position, but you're like, you're the only person that can really like be my chef right now. And I value that because we're so fast to climb to the top. We want the title. You know, it started with getting your name on your jacket, then sous chef underneath, then chef to cuisine, then executive chef, then it becomes about the accolades. How many stars did you get? What newspaper article, what magazine, best new chef, this, that, eventually you lose the opportunity to have a mentor. This is why I feel a responsibility to not disappoint you. I don't care about the numbers. I don't care. It doesn't matter to me. What matters to me is that every time you get up off that sofa, I'm excited. And I know if I'm excited, that the viewer is excited, your teammates are excited, the person you're going up against is excited and probably nervous about going up against you. As long as you continue to have that presence and that drive, you're safe with me. I don't care about the numbers. And I'm glad that you shared that part with me. I'm glad we talked about that. What do you want to do? I want to continue to maintain the curiosity that got me this far. And so for me, what that looks like, I can't answer your question because back then I didn't have a plan. Be a better father, be a better husband, be a better chef, be a better person. And ultimately just, you know, knowing that my legacy could be that I just was the best version of myself that I could be. And I think you have to go through those ups and downs to get there. I'm very grateful for everything I've gotten to do. I think that I did defy the odds. I was out on my own when I was 16. I did make it. I have no excuses at all. You've been given some good opportunities at this point. But I went for them because of my curiosity. And I think that if I can share that curiosity with more people, if I can teach other people, it's okay to lose. If I can teach myself, it's okay to lose a little bit and find the value in those losses as learning experiences to get a few more wins, then I'll take that all day long. When you're competing and you want to impress somebody and you want somebody to be proud of you, who is it, who are you thinking about? It's everybody. I feel their pressure. I don't know who it is, because in some cases it's a few people, in some cases it's a few hundred thousand people. With all that emotion, all that energy, all of that stuff that you just talked about, like being on your shoulders, are you enjoying this? It's my favorite thing I get to do, which is why ultimately I think I get so upset when I don't do as well as I thought I did. I have the bet, this is insane, that this is part of my life. And I think some people take that for granted because some people expect it. Some people think, I deserve this. I don't deserve this. I got lucky. It's a privilege. I got chosen by you. I feel a responsibility. And so anytime that I feel like I haven't done my job, then I feel like I don't deserve to be here. And that it could go away. Yeah, that gets in my head for sure. That's enough emotion for one day. Good job. Thanks so much for watching everybody. This has been an amazing interview with Michael. Lots of insight. I will tell you that personally, it's just a very heartfelt interview. I appreciate this camera so much. Make sure you watch Triple Threat. And of course, if you like this podcast, please subscribe, hit follow. Listen to us on the podcast, wherever you listen to your podcast. Just tune in. Bobby on the beat.
