July 18, 2025 • 30 mins
You know him from Bravo’s “Top Chef,” Michelin star rated chef Michael Voltaggio takes a seat at Luke’s Diner this week.
Hear how competing with his brother almost tore their relationship apart for a few years.
Plus, Scott loves Michael’s new tequila, but did he have a little TOO much on the golf course?
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I am all in again.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Let's do Luke's Diner with Scott Patterson, an iHeartRadio podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Everybody Scott Patterson, I Am All In Podcast Luke's Diner. Addition,
we have a really really special guest. His name is
Michael Voltaggio and he is a really, really, really dynamic chef,
(00:45):
one of the big forces in modern American cuisine, Michelin
star chef, Acclaim Television personality, visionary entrepreneur known for blending precision, creativity,
cultural relevance. Since winning Top Chef Season six, Michael has
built a brand that moves fluidly between high end dining, media,
(01:05):
lifestyle innovation. He has co founded Volcania, an Alpine Italian
an Alpine Italian. Listen to that, an Alpine Italian American
restaurant at Mammoth Mountain Resort. The resume is so long,
you know, let's get into the Mercado twenty eight, which
(01:28):
you sent me a couple bottles of. You know, I've
got maybe a couple of shots left on the Blanco.
But man, we had a time, buddy. Thank you for
the course, of course, and it mixes beautifully with everything.
You can do it straight, you can do it all
the rocks. You can mix it. Oh, it's just beautiful stuff. Man,
thank you for that much.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Abre this is this is the best commercial I've ever had,
So thank you for everything. Across the board and on screen.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Michael's still on a food network. He's a fixture there.
He's on Bobby's Triple Threat, He's on Guys Grocery Games,
Beat Bobby Flay co hosting Battle of the Brothers with
his brother Brian. Welcome Michael, how are you?
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Thank you? I mean, I feel like the whole podcast
could have been my intro, so I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Oh well, that's it. That's all we're doing, so goodbye.
Let's get into it man. Yeah, how'd your first get
into cooking?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
I mean a lot you'll hear the same story from
a lot of chefs, but for me, it was very similar.
I was young, getting in trouble, blah blah blah. I
needed money. I mean, I was fifteen years old. I
needed to buy a car. Ultimately, I was out of
my house at the age of sixteen. So I was
in high school, paying rent on an apartment, playing full
(02:48):
time football or working full time playing football at school,
and by default ended up in the kitchen. I needed
a job, and then I just I didn't realize that
like thirty years would go by and I still have
the same job. So I guess it was all worth
it for sure. But yeah, sometimes you just get that
little bit of motivation to go figure out what you
(03:09):
want to be when you grow up, and you don't
realize that you're already doing it at such a young age.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Right, right, So you co founded an Italian American restaurant,
Mammoth Mountain Resort. I mean, I personally love the mountains.
I'm a big skier, grew up scan I grew up
in New Jersey where there were no mountains, so I
really just like pined for like real mountains, and I
got them and I love them. Tell me why you
(03:36):
chose to open a restaurant in the mountains, Well, I.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Mean we have right now. My brother and I have
three restaurants. We've got Full Kanye, which is at Maamth
like you mentioned. We've got Voltajo Brother's Steakhouse, which is
going on almost ten years old now with MGM as
our partner in National Harbor, which is in Maryland. And
then we just opened another restaurant called Wyoak which is
in our hometown where we grew up in Frederick, Maryland.
So it's just another extension of our story. I mean
(04:00):
Anya when we were going to name that restaurant, Volcanyo
was the name of the ship that brought the Voltagios,
the first Voltagios allegedly to the US and so, and
it also means volcano and mammoth actually sits an a
dormant volcano. And so I came up with that whole
narrative in my head and then we just my brother
(04:22):
and I knew that it was going to be challenging
to get food up to the mountain given its location
in the terrain. So as long as we had flour
and water, we could open the restaurant. And so we
make all of our pasta and we make all of
our pizza do there. So with those two ingredients we
can do we can feed people. And then it just
became sort of a solution. I think there's a built
(04:43):
in audience obviously, but there are the challenges of the elements,
and so for us, it was how do you satisfy
that with hospitality, And that was making sure that we
always had food to serve people.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
And that's year round operation. It's just not during ski season.
You're open summer, You're open all year round.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Oh yeah, I mean people are up there mountain biking,
swimming in the hot springs, hiking, all that good stuff.
I mean very short what we call shoulder seasons where
it slows down, but honestly, we need that time to reset.
Our team gets crushed. I mean from through the entire winter,
We're doing anywhere from four to four hundred and fifty
people to five hundred people the day up there, and
(05:21):
it's just, yeah, we're super stoked. A lot of people
from LA that missed the restaurants that I had here
drive up there and are sort of stoked because I'm
not currently operating a restaurant in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
So what's the go to dish being served up there?
What's the most popular.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
We created a dish called the Voltagios. We are making
our own Annalidi pasta, which looks like spaghettios. We're making
and amlsified a rabiata sauce that has brown butter i'mulsified
into it with colabory and chili. We put it in
a stainless steel can and we pour it tableside, just
like spaghettios back in the day, So that's become a
(06:02):
staple for us up there. But also it's just like
it's comforting, it's comfort food. We're serving Italian American comfort
food up there. We want to give people their carbs
during a time when I think they feel like they're
allowed to eat them, which is extreme sports all day,
carb overload at night. And then we've got meat, fish, salads,
things like that. But we make everything in the house
and it was important for us to be able to
(06:23):
do that beautiful.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
So you and your brother you mentioned you have a
steakhouse called Wyoak Tavern, and that's why Oak.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Is our sort of modern hubs slash chop house, but
a little bit more elevated. And that's built in like
a two hundred year old decommissioned Catholic school. The Catholic
Church came and like blessed, blessed us to do our
thing in there. We've got the original stained glass in
the restaurant itself. It's attached to a hotel, the first
(06:54):
hotel of it's kind in our hometown, the Visitation hotel,
which is for us for me personally cool because now
I can go back and visit my mom and not
sleep on my brother's couch. So there's a hotel attached
to the restaurant. And then Voltajio Brothers Steakhouse MGM has
been a partner, a great partner to us for the
past over eight years now. And so that restaurant, which
sits on National Harbor right across the bridge from Washington, DC,
(07:18):
right on the Potomac River, that's like a steakhouse. We
built it to look like a house, so living room,
a dining room, kitchen, it's a steakhouse, like a like
pun intended steakhouse.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
And we have to talk about being a Michelin starred chef.
What is the process like when being considered for a
Michelin start any does anyone give the restaurant a heads
up or is it a complete surprise.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
No. When I was in my late twenties living in Hillsburg, California,
working for a chef named Charlie Palmer, I had just
taken over the restaurant as the executive chef. Charlie gave
me of autonomy to recreate the menu and sort of
do it my own way, with obviously his blessing along
the way. And after getting the menu implemented. We got
(08:11):
a great review from the San Francisco Chronicle. There was
this surprise that the Michelin Guide was coming out and
we received a star, and I did what anyone else
probably shouldn't do, And at that time I sort of
transitioned out and went back east. I was like, well,
there's only one way to go from here, So I
(08:32):
thank you for this, and I was just I knew
in that moment that I was going to be looking
for opportunities to sort of control and drive my own
narrative from there. And so for me when I received,
when we received that, as a team, I felt a
responsibility to then go out. And anytime you get recognition,
(08:54):
you have this pressure, this accountability to maintain whatever standard
the public has created for you. And so oftentimes that
happens to me annually, like something will happen where now
I get sort of self conscious and I have to
go back and prove something. And so for thirty two
years I've been cooking, I just have this innate pressure
(09:17):
on myself to do better. And so when that happened,
it wasn't like, hey, great job, Michelin star. It was
like now what okay, Now what are you going to
do to get better and to do better and provide
more hospitality and so. And I know that sounds kind
of sales pitchy, but some of us got into this
industry long before social media and any of that stuff,
(09:39):
and it wasn't about We weren't even talking really about
celebrity chefs when I started cooking. And so for me,
it was a job, it was a craft, it was
a it was a trade that I learned to support myself.
And every time you get those nods, it's like, oh, wow, Okay,
this is really super cool that I get these opportunities.
But I get that recognition and it makes me just
(09:59):
want to work.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
So you've been on many cooking shows. What draws you
to them?
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Originally? When I did, the first one I did was
Top Chef, and I remember watching it. I remember thinking
to myself, Wow, there's some really good cooks on this show.
I'd never seen restaurant chefs really on TV doing what
we do in our restaurants in a competitive environment with
cameras in their face, and so I was really intrigued
by that. I watched it as a fan and Marcel
(10:35):
and your own who was a contestant on the show
at the time, and I would say, like one of
the more recognized ones. When that show was started out,
Like in the beginning, Marcel was like, I'm like, this
guy's famous. He applied for a job as a soue
chef when I was sous chef when I was opening
the Bazaar with Jseandres in La and I was to
be the executive chef of the hotel. And I was like, wow,
(10:56):
this is random. This guy just came off of the show.
He's applying for a sue chef job. What's the deal?
Interviewed them, and similar vibes to what I'm saying now.
He felt that same pressure to go back and like okay,
now prove all the hype. And so he came to
work with us, and one day we were joking around
and I was like, a haha, top chef that I
could have won that, and he's like, well, if you
think it's so easy, why don't you go do it?
(11:17):
And I'm like, fine, I will, And so I applied,
got on the show and competed and won and so
from there, anytime you get a little piece of show business,
I would say there's a sort of addiction attached to that,
like you get a taste for it and you're like, wait,
this is really neat, this is cool. I can't believe
(11:38):
I get to do this, because not many people do
in the world. And now they can, obviously with these things,
but to be able to get pooled from society and
go do something like that and get recognized like that,
and then the opportunity is to sort of share that
part of yourself with people that aren't necessarily eating in
the restaurants, but then drive them back to your restaurants.
(11:58):
And so now I looked at it, or now I
look at it as and I think back then even
more so as another discipline, another thing I could learn
how to do. I was this introverted like I'm a
serious chef and I'm going to keep my head down
and no one needs to talk to me and I'm
so cool and blah blah blah. To like, wait a second,
that's not hospitality, And I think food television actually became
(12:21):
a conduit to extend more hospitality to more people. So
then I was like, Okay, I want to do more
of this, and I mean, who doesn't. Food network is
ultimately the goal for every I feel like it's called
the Food Network, Like what do people watch that to see?
They seek food and cooking. So my goal was to
get onto the Food Network. And They've been so good
(12:44):
to me over the years, and I've gotten to get
mentored by the best I mean from Bobby to Guy
to I mean everyone to Amberell who we just lost yesterday,
and the list goes on and on and on of
the people that within that network. I got to learn
under no different than I learned under a lot of
the executive chefs and chefs that I worked for, just
(13:05):
learning how to cook, and so it was another skill set.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
So what was it like competing against your brother on
top chef the chef? Did it cause some family tension?
Was he happier or was he a little salty? When
you want?
Speaker 2 (13:18):
It was a little It was a little awkward. It
was a little awkward for a while there. It divided
us for sure. I mean I think that not not
by intention or design. It just our goal was to
get each other to the end or get to the end,
and it happened and that was all real, Like there
was nothing produced about it. We just both you know,
sort of fought our way through that entire competition, and
(13:39):
then when it came down to the two of us
and a third Kevin Billss there my boss Sam and
Azarian who owned the SLS Hotel that I had left
to go to top chef to do uh. He was
sitting at the table while I was cooking. So there
was a lot of pressure. And did it divided? I
(14:00):
did us for a long time that it sort of
inspired this separation where my brother and I ran different
professional directions I would say secretly, like rooting for each other,
but not publicly and not to each other. To fast
forward to today, that was the dumbest thing we could
have done. We immediately realized, I think immediately a few
years later, we should be partners and we should do
(14:22):
this together, and wouldn't it be cool if we could?
You know, some people would look at this as an
opportunity to work half as hard. We saw it as
an opportunity to accomplish twice as much, and so we
became business partners. And as much as people like to
see us go against each other, that's not real for
us now, like where we share our recipes, we collaborate,
(14:45):
we cook together. We support our families by doing this
and so he's my family, so I'm indirectly and vice versa,
we're supporting each other's families.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Beautiful, Beautiful, you have a tequila brand, So, and thank
you very much for sending me with Top of the Show.
I let everybody know you sent me two bottles. I
took them with me Saturday on our golf scramble tournament
at our local country club and we were so, what's
(15:21):
the word faced? I think that's the word. That all
of our first four shots all went into the water.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
How much to kill it? Did you guys drink.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
A little too much? Probably? We're very happy with the flavor.
Tell us about that, Marcado Marcado twenty eight. How'd that
come about?
Speaker 2 (15:50):
So? Initially it was like I feel like when the
opportunity came across the table was more of like a
marketing collaboration. This company reached out to us. These guys,
they're responsible for Winds that Rock. They now have Spirits
a Rock, and they do a great job at bringing
sort of lifestyle brands together and decorating the Spirits world
and telling their stories through these different spirits. So when
(16:13):
I met with them to potentially be their their partner
in Marcato twenty eight, which means Marcato means mark, So
Marcato twenty eight. The twenty eight refers to Leviticus twenty eight,
which is a Bible verse that says don't basically, don't
mark your body too late for that so too like
you're in the club and you drank the tequila already.
(16:35):
So it started as this brand narrative about defiance, and
I said, well, if we're going to be defiant in
this industry, and you know, I'm sort of a public
face in my own right, I guess some people would
say that, what if we made a really good tequila
and didn't charge a lot of money for it, and
(16:57):
I was given the opportunity to go to Mexico so
meet the people that were growing the agave, go through
the process with the family that's going to make it,
and we make something really good so that it doesn't
come out like, oh, here's this tequila and there's this
chef guy that's involved in it, but it's probably not
any good. What if we were like, well, yeah, but
(17:19):
this is really really good tequila, and I can tell
you who made it, and I can tell you about
the family's lineage and I can tell you about every
part of it, down to I was involved in the
process of making it. What if we did that? And
then fast forward to today our scores from wine enthusiasts,
we got ninety four on the Blanco and a ninety
(17:40):
three on a Repisodo, and we continue to sort of
get decent scores within our category, and we've managed to
keep our price point down low enough for everyone that
wants to feel like a little bit defiant when they're
shopping and making their decisions, like get behind a brand
where I can tell you every single person involved in
(18:00):
the process. And so we collectively as a group decided
to maintain that discipline, to have a family sort of
environment behind this brand, and ultimately down to even like
the tattoo artists that did the labels. I know Billy
Baka and I know Elsando. I've been tattooed by both
of them, and they gave they were given the opportunity
to tell their stories through the art that's on the label.
(18:21):
So it was less about a quick like oh, let's
started to kill a brand, and more about again every
part everything that I do in my life, like I
feel like I'm held accountable to be able to tell
that story. And if there's such thing as legacy, you know,
I feel like my legacy one day could be that
I was somebody who had a trade, but that I
was a storyteller through my craft and through my trade,
(18:44):
and I was willing and able to sort of emotionally
share that part of myself along with the physical acts
of what I was doing. And so everything that I do,
I try to make sure that there's a story of
authenticity that's linked to it, because I think enough there's
enough bullshit out there right now that I don't need
to jump into that, right.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Yeah, Yeah, the story is all, It's everything. What's the
best way to drink Marcato twenty eight is cocktail straight?
How do you like it?
Speaker 2 (19:22):
So you just said you went to play golf and
you were lit by the time you teat off right,
So to me, what that suggests is that it was
very easy to drink. You probably felt that it was smooth.
And I'm not doing a tequila ad right now. It
was I'm using your words, So I would say, try
it like that. I like a little bit of ice,
(19:43):
one cube, one big cube that doesn't felt too fast.
That's my vibe. But one thing specifically about tequila, whether
it be blanco, reposoto, and jeho mescal even which is
not tequila, but it's an agave spirit. Obviously, to swap
out any sort of spirit in any classic cocktail with
(20:05):
inappropriate toe quill it. Now, what does that mean? Reposado
would lean more towards Scotch and things like that, I
would say, and yahoe would lean more towards bourbons, and
the blanco could replace any sort of gin in vodka.
So I feel like, if you're able to have one
spirit behind your bar, let's say you live in a
two hundred square foot apartment with a two foot little
(20:28):
corner for your bar, tequilo would be a great spirit
to always have. In having those three, with the various
ages levels of age, you could almost make any classic
cocktail just by having tequila or a gave spirit. So
I would say, try anything at all. I mean, even
in the groni if you have a little kompari and
(20:49):
some vermouth. Now I know, I just added two more
bottles to your bar at home, But tequila and Negroni
and mezcal and negroni, you know those It works basically
in any sort of cocktail.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
If there's one thing that you wish people knew more
about how tequila should be made or enjoyed, what would
that be?
Speaker 2 (21:09):
I want to be careful how I answer that. Honestly,
I feel like the best way for us has been
educating the people that are selling it for us, Like
I go to Total Wine and Spirits, or I go
to ABC. When I went to ABC Lickuers in Florida,
I met with everyone there and we told them our story.
And I think a lot of times when you go
to a beverage supplier or a store, oftentimes you can
(21:34):
tell if the product is good or the story is
authentic by how the employees interact with you when you
start asking questions. Also, bottleneckers are a good sort of
indication as to whether or not you're getting something good.
We did wine enthusiasts gave us that those ratings, but
we didn't know we were going to get those ratings. Well,
now that we have those ratings, we have those those
(21:56):
neckers that we can go and put on the bottles
that say And I was at at Albertson's grocery store
two days ago. We were having people over. I needed
a bottle of piano Nora. I didn't want to spend
a ton of money, and so I just looked for
those neckers and I used wine enthusiasts as my as
my guide to Like, I don't know if I'm answering
the question, but I feel like asking questions and doing
(22:16):
research on what you're buying as opposed to like what's
hype out in the marketplace right now. It was very
easy for everyone to be like costam Egos. That's because
they did a great job putting it everywhere. I mean,
I feel like when costam Egos came to market, every
like LA party that I went to was sponsored by
costam Egos and we were all drinking it. We all
thought like, oh, that's the tequila that everyone needs to
(22:39):
drink right now and right now. Their stories being told
a little bit differently these days, and I think.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Oh, it is it is?
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Well, there's just there's there's tequila. Is that? And again,
it's about flavor preference and profiles, Like I definitely used
costam Egos as an example. We were trying to get
to our tasting profiles. How do we get that smoothness,
that drink ability without adding anything to it? And I
think that's probably the number one thing to look for
in tequila, is are there additives. We don't have any additives.
(23:08):
Ours is a gave yeast and water, basically specifically blue agave.
So to be able to tell that part of your
I would start there. Kasamilos managed to put together something
that was drinkable, smooth, approachable, and I feel like they're
responsible for bringing a lot of people back to tequila.
And I feel like this sort of tequila drive that's
(23:32):
happening in the world right now where everyone wants it.
This trend. I'd hate to say trend, but I think
that Costamigo's really made tequila a little bit more approachable
for everyone. And then now we use that to inspire
our flavor profiles. But we did it naturally, We didn't
add anything to it.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Now, when you were approached, did this company have a
distribution strategy? And how's that going?
Speaker 2 (23:55):
That's always the question, right, I mean, when you talk
about distribution, that's for those of you that don't know
really what that means. It's how do we get our
product from us to you? And ultimately that goes through
a distributor and there's a lot of sort of rules
and regulations around that. We do the same thing that
we did when we made the tequila. We call everyone
(24:16):
ourselves and we have conversations and we want them to
buy into not just our brand, but our story and
get behind it because ultimately they're going to be asked
the same questions you're asking me right now. So it
starts with phone calls and relationships. And we've got a
really good team behind us of people that have been
doing this for a lot of years and have built
(24:37):
these relationships, and so a lot of it is I mean,
they can tell your excitement when you make the call.
You know, are you just trying to sell me something
or are you showing up to my office and you're
here in person to talk about it, which I've done
on several occasions. I've even driven to the Total Whining
More on Librea in West Hollywood and just walked in
(24:58):
with a sharpie in my end and signed the B
and asked for the manager and said like, Hey, can
I talk to you about this tequila. I'm one of
the people behind it, and I'd really love to share
my experience with you. And I think that that goes
a long way. ABC Down in Florida, they they're like
a massive family owned operation, but they were interested in
hearing that story. And I think for us, it's about
(25:21):
not just who can we sell our story to, but
who wants to hear our story? And I think that
that goes a long way. I mean, we're all sold.
I get got on Instagram. I tell my wife, I
got got today on Instagram. I bought a furry green
Oscar the Grouch Sesame street hat the other day because
it popped up on my Instagram feed and I had
this memory of somebody calling the Oscar the Grouch one
(25:42):
day because I was grouchy, and I'm like, I need
that hat. Now. I have this green furry hat sitting
on my kitchen counter right now that I haven't worn yet.
But I got got. I got got on Instagram. So
I got an ad hit me, and I'm like, if
our ads are going to hit people, then let's hit
them emotionally. And I think let's hit him authentically, and
let's hit them with a story that we can stand behind.
(26:03):
And I think that whether it's in our restaurants or
if I'm cooking, working with Food Network, anywhere, with anywhere
in my world, that I have an opportunity to be
myself and communicate that part of myself, I'm going to
take it because I spent a lot of years of
my life and I think you could probably say the
(26:24):
same thing about yourself trying to figure out who that is.
And I think once you get to a level in
life where you're comfortable with who you are in your
own sort of my Soubinge package of myself, I feel
confident enough to go out and talk. I feel like,
you know, I was thinking, I told my wife before
(26:45):
we got on the podcast today. I was like, Wow,
podcasts are really wild because you have to like think
about what if you're answering the same question you were
asked before, do you have to answer it the same
way or do you change your answer based on how
you feel today? Or will people judge you for the
inconsistent or the consistencies. I mean, you see it in
politics every day right now, So it's like, how do you?
And my answer to that is I'm just going to
(27:07):
be myself and I think all of us need to
do that, and I get to do that as an
artist and I call myself that because I create things.
As as a person who works in a trade in hospitality.
My job is to take care of people, and if
I can't do that, then I'm a fraud. And so
every opportunity that I have to do that professionally and personally,
(27:29):
I take advantage of that opportunity and I do it beautiful.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
All right, here we go. We got time for one
last question. If you were to come into Luke's Diner, Okay,
what would your order? Where would you sit?
Speaker 2 (27:41):
I would sit probably at a banquette so that I
could be comfortable. I'd like to do one of these
and then I would have to say burger for me,
nothing healthy on it, extra cheese, and of course a
side of wink winkers.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Uh huh. Beautiful. Michael Voltagio check out its Tequila Marcato
twenty eight. He's got some restaurants that are fabulous. One
up the Volcania up in Monmouth Mountain Resort, Wyo Tavern?
Is that Wyok Tavern? Or why Wyok Wyok? And that
(28:22):
is in Frederick, Maryland, Frederick, Maryland. Check it out. He's
got some other more exciting things coming. You have what
total four restaurants now we have.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Three, but we're working on some other stuff right now. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Look out for this guy. He's taken over. Michael, thank
you so very much for spending the time with us.
We'd love to have you back on to chart your
progress because it looks like you're going places and it's
not just the liquor store, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
It's everywhere, and I'd be happy to be back. I
really appreciate you guys for thinking of me and thank
you like it means a lot to me that you
reached out and this was a yeah, I can do
this all day, especially with that intro.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
You gave me our pleasure. And remember, best fans on
the planet, keep your cards and letters, come and remember
where you lead, we will follow. Stay safe everyone, Hey, everybody,
(29:42):
and don't forget Follow us on Instagram at I Am
all In podcast and email us at Gilmour at iHeartRadio
dot com.
I am all in again.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Let's do Luke's Diner with Scott Patterson, an iHeartRadio podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Everybody Scott Patterson, I Am All In Podcast Luke's Diner. Addition,
we have a really really special guest. His name is
Michael Voltaggio and he is a really, really, really dynamic chef,
(00:45):
one of the big forces in modern American cuisine, Michelin
star chef, Acclaim Television personality, visionary entrepreneur known for blending precision, creativity,
cultural relevance. Since winning Top Chef Season six, Michael has
built a brand that moves fluidly between high end dining, media,
(01:05):
lifestyle innovation. He has co founded Volcania, an Alpine Italian
an Alpine Italian. Listen to that, an Alpine Italian American
restaurant at Mammoth Mountain Resort. The resume is so long,
you know, let's get into the Mercado twenty eight, which
(01:28):
you sent me a couple bottles of. You know, I've
got maybe a couple of shots left on the Blanco.
But man, we had a time, buddy. Thank you for
the course, of course, and it mixes beautifully with everything.
You can do it straight, you can do it all
the rocks. You can mix it. Oh, it's just beautiful stuff. Man,
thank you for that much.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Abre this is this is the best commercial I've ever had,
So thank you for everything. Across the board and on screen.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Michael's still on a food network. He's a fixture there.
He's on Bobby's Triple Threat, He's on Guys Grocery Games,
Beat Bobby Flay co hosting Battle of the Brothers with
his brother Brian. Welcome Michael, how are you?
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Thank you? I mean, I feel like the whole podcast
could have been my intro, so I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Oh well, that's it. That's all we're doing, so goodbye.
Let's get into it man. Yeah, how'd your first get
into cooking?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
I mean a lot you'll hear the same story from
a lot of chefs, but for me, it was very similar.
I was young, getting in trouble, blah blah blah. I
needed money. I mean, I was fifteen years old. I
needed to buy a car. Ultimately, I was out of
my house at the age of sixteen. So I was
in high school, paying rent on an apartment, playing full
(02:48):
time football or working full time playing football at school,
and by default ended up in the kitchen. I needed
a job, and then I just I didn't realize that
like thirty years would go by and I still have
the same job. So I guess it was all worth
it for sure. But yeah, sometimes you just get that
little bit of motivation to go figure out what you
(03:09):
want to be when you grow up, and you don't
realize that you're already doing it at such a young age.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Right, right, So you co founded an Italian American restaurant,
Mammoth Mountain Resort. I mean, I personally love the mountains.
I'm a big skier, grew up scan I grew up
in New Jersey where there were no mountains, so I
really just like pined for like real mountains, and I
got them and I love them. Tell me why you
(03:36):
chose to open a restaurant in the mountains, Well, I.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Mean we have right now. My brother and I have
three restaurants. We've got Full Kanye, which is at Maamth
like you mentioned. We've got Voltajo Brother's Steakhouse, which is
going on almost ten years old now with MGM as
our partner in National Harbor, which is in Maryland. And
then we just opened another restaurant called Wyoak which is
in our hometown where we grew up in Frederick, Maryland.
So it's just another extension of our story. I mean
(04:00):
Anya when we were going to name that restaurant, Volcanyo
was the name of the ship that brought the Voltagios,
the first Voltagios allegedly to the US and so, and
it also means volcano and mammoth actually sits an a
dormant volcano. And so I came up with that whole
narrative in my head and then we just my brother
(04:22):
and I knew that it was going to be challenging
to get food up to the mountain given its location
in the terrain. So as long as we had flour
and water, we could open the restaurant. And so we
make all of our pasta and we make all of
our pizza do there. So with those two ingredients we
can do we can feed people. And then it just
became sort of a solution. I think there's a built
(04:43):
in audience obviously, but there are the challenges of the elements,
and so for us, it was how do you satisfy
that with hospitality, And that was making sure that we
always had food to serve people.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
And that's year round operation. It's just not during ski season.
You're open summer, You're open all year round.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Oh yeah, I mean people are up there mountain biking,
swimming in the hot springs, hiking, all that good stuff.
I mean very short what we call shoulder seasons where
it slows down, but honestly, we need that time to reset.
Our team gets crushed. I mean from through the entire winter,
We're doing anywhere from four to four hundred and fifty
people to five hundred people the day up there, and
(05:21):
it's just, yeah, we're super stoked. A lot of people
from LA that missed the restaurants that I had here
drive up there and are sort of stoked because I'm
not currently operating a restaurant in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
So what's the go to dish being served up there?
What's the most popular.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
We created a dish called the Voltagios. We are making
our own Annalidi pasta, which looks like spaghettios. We're making
and amlsified a rabiata sauce that has brown butter i'mulsified
into it with colabory and chili. We put it in
a stainless steel can and we pour it tableside, just
like spaghettios back in the day, So that's become a
(06:02):
staple for us up there. But also it's just like
it's comforting, it's comfort food. We're serving Italian American comfort
food up there. We want to give people their carbs
during a time when I think they feel like they're
allowed to eat them, which is extreme sports all day,
carb overload at night. And then we've got meat, fish, salads,
things like that. But we make everything in the house
and it was important for us to be able to
(06:23):
do that beautiful.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
So you and your brother you mentioned you have a
steakhouse called Wyoak Tavern, and that's why Oak.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Is our sort of modern hubs slash chop house, but
a little bit more elevated. And that's built in like
a two hundred year old decommissioned Catholic school. The Catholic
Church came and like blessed, blessed us to do our
thing in there. We've got the original stained glass in
the restaurant itself. It's attached to a hotel, the first
(06:54):
hotel of it's kind in our hometown, the Visitation hotel,
which is for us for me personally cool because now
I can go back and visit my mom and not
sleep on my brother's couch. So there's a hotel attached
to the restaurant. And then Voltajio Brothers Steakhouse MGM has
been a partner, a great partner to us for the
past over eight years now. And so that restaurant, which
sits on National Harbor right across the bridge from Washington, DC,
(07:18):
right on the Potomac River, that's like a steakhouse. We
built it to look like a house, so living room,
a dining room, kitchen, it's a steakhouse, like a like
pun intended steakhouse.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
And we have to talk about being a Michelin starred chef.
What is the process like when being considered for a
Michelin start any does anyone give the restaurant a heads
up or is it a complete surprise.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
No. When I was in my late twenties living in Hillsburg, California,
working for a chef named Charlie Palmer, I had just
taken over the restaurant as the executive chef. Charlie gave
me of autonomy to recreate the menu and sort of
do it my own way, with obviously his blessing along
the way. And after getting the menu implemented. We got
(08:11):
a great review from the San Francisco Chronicle. There was
this surprise that the Michelin Guide was coming out and
we received a star, and I did what anyone else
probably shouldn't do, And at that time I sort of
transitioned out and went back east. I was like, well,
there's only one way to go from here, So I
(08:32):
thank you for this, and I was just I knew
in that moment that I was going to be looking
for opportunities to sort of control and drive my own
narrative from there. And so for me when I received,
when we received that, as a team, I felt a
responsibility to then go out. And anytime you get recognition,
(08:54):
you have this pressure, this accountability to maintain whatever standard
the public has created for you. And so oftentimes that
happens to me annually, like something will happen where now
I get sort of self conscious and I have to
go back and prove something. And so for thirty two
years I've been cooking, I just have this innate pressure
(09:17):
on myself to do better. And so when that happened,
it wasn't like, hey, great job, Michelin star. It was
like now what okay, Now what are you going to
do to get better and to do better and provide
more hospitality and so. And I know that sounds kind
of sales pitchy, but some of us got into this
industry long before social media and any of that stuff,
(09:39):
and it wasn't about We weren't even talking really about
celebrity chefs when I started cooking. And so for me,
it was a job, it was a craft, it was
a it was a trade that I learned to support myself.
And every time you get those nods, it's like, oh, wow, Okay,
this is really super cool that I get these opportunities.
But I get that recognition and it makes me just
(09:59):
want to work.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
So you've been on many cooking shows. What draws you
to them?
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Originally? When I did, the first one I did was
Top Chef, and I remember watching it. I remember thinking
to myself, Wow, there's some really good cooks on this show.
I'd never seen restaurant chefs really on TV doing what
we do in our restaurants in a competitive environment with
cameras in their face, and so I was really intrigued
by that. I watched it as a fan and Marcel
(10:35):
and your own who was a contestant on the show
at the time, and I would say, like one of
the more recognized ones. When that show was started out,
Like in the beginning, Marcel was like, I'm like, this
guy's famous. He applied for a job as a soue
chef when I was sous chef when I was opening
the Bazaar with Jseandres in La and I was to
be the executive chef of the hotel. And I was like, wow,
(10:56):
this is random. This guy just came off of the show.
He's applying for a sue chef job. What's the deal?
Interviewed them, and similar vibes to what I'm saying now.
He felt that same pressure to go back and like okay,
now prove all the hype. And so he came to
work with us, and one day we were joking around
and I was like, a haha, top chef that I
could have won that, and he's like, well, if you
think it's so easy, why don't you go do it?
(11:17):
And I'm like, fine, I will, And so I applied,
got on the show and competed and won and so
from there, anytime you get a little piece of show business,
I would say there's a sort of addiction attached to that,
like you get a taste for it and you're like, wait,
this is really neat, this is cool. I can't believe
(11:38):
I get to do this, because not many people do
in the world. And now they can, obviously with these things,
but to be able to get pooled from society and
go do something like that and get recognized like that,
and then the opportunity is to sort of share that
part of yourself with people that aren't necessarily eating in
the restaurants, but then drive them back to your restaurants.
(11:58):
And so now I looked at it, or now I
look at it as and I think back then even
more so as another discipline, another thing I could learn
how to do. I was this introverted like I'm a
serious chef and I'm going to keep my head down
and no one needs to talk to me and I'm
so cool and blah blah blah. To like, wait a second,
that's not hospitality, And I think food television actually became
(12:21):
a conduit to extend more hospitality to more people. So
then I was like, Okay, I want to do more
of this, and I mean, who doesn't. Food network is
ultimately the goal for every I feel like it's called
the Food Network, Like what do people watch that to see?
They seek food and cooking. So my goal was to
get onto the Food Network. And They've been so good
(12:44):
to me over the years, and I've gotten to get
mentored by the best I mean from Bobby to Guy
to I mean everyone to Amberell who we just lost yesterday,
and the list goes on and on and on of
the people that within that network. I got to learn
under no different than I learned under a lot of
the executive chefs and chefs that I worked for, just
(13:05):
learning how to cook, and so it was another skill set.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
So what was it like competing against your brother on
top chef the chef? Did it cause some family tension?
Was he happier or was he a little salty? When
you want?
Speaker 2 (13:18):
It was a little It was a little awkward. It
was a little awkward for a while there. It divided
us for sure. I mean I think that not not
by intention or design. It just our goal was to
get each other to the end or get to the end,
and it happened and that was all real, Like there
was nothing produced about it. We just both you know,
sort of fought our way through that entire competition, and
(13:39):
then when it came down to the two of us
and a third Kevin Billss there my boss Sam and
Azarian who owned the SLS Hotel that I had left
to go to top chef to do uh. He was
sitting at the table while I was cooking. So there
was a lot of pressure. And did it divided? I
(14:00):
did us for a long time that it sort of
inspired this separation where my brother and I ran different
professional directions I would say secretly, like rooting for each other,
but not publicly and not to each other. To fast
forward to today, that was the dumbest thing we could
have done. We immediately realized, I think immediately a few
years later, we should be partners and we should do
(14:22):
this together, and wouldn't it be cool if we could?
You know, some people would look at this as an
opportunity to work half as hard. We saw it as
an opportunity to accomplish twice as much, and so we
became business partners. And as much as people like to
see us go against each other, that's not real for
us now, like where we share our recipes, we collaborate,
(14:45):
we cook together. We support our families by doing this
and so he's my family, so I'm indirectly and vice versa,
we're supporting each other's families.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Beautiful, Beautiful, you have a tequila brand, So, and thank
you very much for sending me with Top of the Show.
I let everybody know you sent me two bottles. I
took them with me Saturday on our golf scramble tournament
at our local country club and we were so, what's
(15:21):
the word faced? I think that's the word. That all
of our first four shots all went into the water.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
How much to kill it? Did you guys drink.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
A little too much? Probably? We're very happy with the flavor.
Tell us about that, Marcado Marcado twenty eight. How'd that
come about?
Speaker 2 (15:50):
So? Initially it was like I feel like when the
opportunity came across the table was more of like a
marketing collaboration. This company reached out to us. These guys,
they're responsible for Winds that Rock. They now have Spirits
a Rock, and they do a great job at bringing
sort of lifestyle brands together and decorating the Spirits world
and telling their stories through these different spirits. So when
(16:13):
I met with them to potentially be their their partner
in Marcato twenty eight, which means Marcato means mark, So
Marcato twenty eight. The twenty eight refers to Leviticus twenty eight,
which is a Bible verse that says don't basically, don't
mark your body too late for that so too like
you're in the club and you drank the tequila already.
(16:35):
So it started as this brand narrative about defiance, and
I said, well, if we're going to be defiant in
this industry, and you know, I'm sort of a public
face in my own right, I guess some people would
say that, what if we made a really good tequila
and didn't charge a lot of money for it, and
(16:57):
I was given the opportunity to go to Mexico so
meet the people that were growing the agave, go through
the process with the family that's going to make it,
and we make something really good so that it doesn't
come out like, oh, here's this tequila and there's this
chef guy that's involved in it, but it's probably not
any good. What if we were like, well, yeah, but
(17:19):
this is really really good tequila, and I can tell
you who made it, and I can tell you about
the family's lineage and I can tell you about every
part of it, down to I was involved in the
process of making it. What if we did that? And
then fast forward to today our scores from wine enthusiasts,
we got ninety four on the Blanco and a ninety
(17:40):
three on a Repisodo, and we continue to sort of
get decent scores within our category, and we've managed to
keep our price point down low enough for everyone that
wants to feel like a little bit defiant when they're
shopping and making their decisions, like get behind a brand
where I can tell you every single person involved in
(18:00):
the process. And so we collectively as a group decided
to maintain that discipline, to have a family sort of
environment behind this brand, and ultimately down to even like
the tattoo artists that did the labels. I know Billy
Baka and I know Elsando. I've been tattooed by both
of them, and they gave they were given the opportunity
to tell their stories through the art that's on the label.
(18:21):
So it was less about a quick like oh, let's
started to kill a brand, and more about again every
part everything that I do in my life, like I
feel like I'm held accountable to be able to tell
that story. And if there's such thing as legacy, you know,
I feel like my legacy one day could be that
I was somebody who had a trade, but that I
was a storyteller through my craft and through my trade,
(18:44):
and I was willing and able to sort of emotionally
share that part of myself along with the physical acts
of what I was doing. And so everything that I do,
I try to make sure that there's a story of
authenticity that's linked to it, because I think enough there's
enough bullshit out there right now that I don't need
to jump into that, right.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Yeah, Yeah, the story is all, It's everything. What's the
best way to drink Marcato twenty eight is cocktail straight?
How do you like it?
Speaker 2 (19:22):
So you just said you went to play golf and
you were lit by the time you teat off right,
So to me, what that suggests is that it was
very easy to drink. You probably felt that it was smooth.
And I'm not doing a tequila ad right now. It
was I'm using your words, So I would say, try
it like that. I like a little bit of ice,
(19:43):
one cube, one big cube that doesn't felt too fast.
That's my vibe. But one thing specifically about tequila, whether
it be blanco, reposoto, and jeho mescal even which is
not tequila, but it's an agave spirit. Obviously, to swap
out any sort of spirit in any classic cocktail with
(20:05):
inappropriate toe quill it. Now, what does that mean? Reposado
would lean more towards Scotch and things like that, I
would say, and yahoe would lean more towards bourbons, and
the blanco could replace any sort of gin in vodka.
So I feel like, if you're able to have one
spirit behind your bar, let's say you live in a
two hundred square foot apartment with a two foot little
(20:28):
corner for your bar, tequilo would be a great spirit
to always have. In having those three, with the various
ages levels of age, you could almost make any classic
cocktail just by having tequila or a gave spirit. So
I would say, try anything at all. I mean, even
in the groni if you have a little kompari and
(20:49):
some vermouth. Now I know, I just added two more
bottles to your bar at home, But tequila and Negroni
and mezcal and negroni, you know those It works basically
in any sort of cocktail.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
If there's one thing that you wish people knew more
about how tequila should be made or enjoyed, what would
that be?
Speaker 2 (21:09):
I want to be careful how I answer that. Honestly,
I feel like the best way for us has been
educating the people that are selling it for us, Like
I go to Total Wine and Spirits, or I go
to ABC. When I went to ABC Lickuers in Florida,
I met with everyone there and we told them our story.
And I think a lot of times when you go
to a beverage supplier or a store, oftentimes you can
(21:34):
tell if the product is good or the story is
authentic by how the employees interact with you when you
start asking questions. Also, bottleneckers are a good sort of
indication as to whether or not you're getting something good.
We did wine enthusiasts gave us that those ratings, but
we didn't know we were going to get those ratings. Well,
now that we have those ratings, we have those those
(21:56):
neckers that we can go and put on the bottles
that say And I was at at Albertson's grocery store
two days ago. We were having people over. I needed
a bottle of piano Nora. I didn't want to spend
a ton of money, and so I just looked for
those neckers and I used wine enthusiasts as my as
my guide to Like, I don't know if I'm answering
the question, but I feel like asking questions and doing
(22:16):
research on what you're buying as opposed to like what's
hype out in the marketplace right now. It was very
easy for everyone to be like costam Egos. That's because
they did a great job putting it everywhere. I mean,
I feel like when costam Egos came to market, every
like LA party that I went to was sponsored by
costam Egos and we were all drinking it. We all
thought like, oh, that's the tequila that everyone needs to
(22:39):
drink right now and right now. Their stories being told
a little bit differently these days, and I think.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Oh, it is it is?
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Well, there's just there's there's tequila. Is that? And again,
it's about flavor preference and profiles, Like I definitely used
costam Egos as an example. We were trying to get
to our tasting profiles. How do we get that smoothness,
that drink ability without adding anything to it? And I
think that's probably the number one thing to look for
in tequila, is are there additives. We don't have any additives.
(23:08):
Ours is a gave yeast and water, basically specifically blue agave.
So to be able to tell that part of your
I would start there. Kasamilos managed to put together something
that was drinkable, smooth, approachable, and I feel like they're
responsible for bringing a lot of people back to tequila.
And I feel like this sort of tequila drive that's
(23:32):
happening in the world right now where everyone wants it.
This trend. I'd hate to say trend, but I think
that Costamigo's really made tequila a little bit more approachable
for everyone. And then now we use that to inspire
our flavor profiles. But we did it naturally, We didn't
add anything to it.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Now, when you were approached, did this company have a
distribution strategy? And how's that going?
Speaker 2 (23:55):
That's always the question, right, I mean, when you talk
about distribution, that's for those of you that don't know
really what that means. It's how do we get our
product from us to you? And ultimately that goes through
a distributor and there's a lot of sort of rules
and regulations around that. We do the same thing that
we did when we made the tequila. We call everyone
(24:16):
ourselves and we have conversations and we want them to
buy into not just our brand, but our story and
get behind it because ultimately they're going to be asked
the same questions you're asking me right now. So it
starts with phone calls and relationships. And we've got a
really good team behind us of people that have been
doing this for a lot of years and have built
(24:37):
these relationships, and so a lot of it is I mean,
they can tell your excitement when you make the call.
You know, are you just trying to sell me something
or are you showing up to my office and you're
here in person to talk about it, which I've done
on several occasions. I've even driven to the Total Whining
More on Librea in West Hollywood and just walked in
(24:58):
with a sharpie in my end and signed the B
and asked for the manager and said like, Hey, can
I talk to you about this tequila. I'm one of
the people behind it, and I'd really love to share
my experience with you. And I think that that goes
a long way. ABC Down in Florida, they they're like
a massive family owned operation, but they were interested in
hearing that story. And I think for us, it's about
(25:21):
not just who can we sell our story to, but
who wants to hear our story? And I think that
that goes a long way. I mean, we're all sold.
I get got on Instagram. I tell my wife, I
got got today on Instagram. I bought a furry green
Oscar the Grouch Sesame street hat the other day because
it popped up on my Instagram feed and I had
this memory of somebody calling the Oscar the Grouch one
(25:42):
day because I was grouchy, and I'm like, I need
that hat. Now. I have this green furry hat sitting
on my kitchen counter right now that I haven't worn yet.
But I got got. I got got on Instagram. So
I got an ad hit me, and I'm like, if
our ads are going to hit people, then let's hit
them emotionally. And I think let's hit him authentically, and
let's hit them with a story that we can stand behind.
(26:03):
And I think that whether it's in our restaurants or
if I'm cooking, working with Food Network, anywhere, with anywhere
in my world, that I have an opportunity to be
myself and communicate that part of myself, I'm going to
take it because I spent a lot of years of
my life and I think you could probably say the
(26:24):
same thing about yourself trying to figure out who that is.
And I think once you get to a level in
life where you're comfortable with who you are in your
own sort of my Soubinge package of myself, I feel
confident enough to go out and talk. I feel like,
you know, I was thinking, I told my wife before
(26:45):
we got on the podcast today. I was like, Wow,
podcasts are really wild because you have to like think
about what if you're answering the same question you were
asked before, do you have to answer it the same
way or do you change your answer based on how
you feel today? Or will people judge you for the
inconsistent or the consistencies. I mean, you see it in
politics every day right now, So it's like, how do you?
And my answer to that is I'm just going to
(27:07):
be myself and I think all of us need to
do that, and I get to do that as an
artist and I call myself that because I create things.
As as a person who works in a trade in hospitality.
My job is to take care of people, and if
I can't do that, then I'm a fraud. And so
every opportunity that I have to do that professionally and personally,
(27:29):
I take advantage of that opportunity and I do it beautiful.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
All right, here we go. We got time for one
last question. If you were to come into Luke's Diner, Okay,
what would your order? Where would you sit?
Speaker 2 (27:41):
I would sit probably at a banquette so that I
could be comfortable. I'd like to do one of these
and then I would have to say burger for me,
nothing healthy on it, extra cheese, and of course a
side of wink winkers.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Uh huh. Beautiful. Michael Voltagio check out its Tequila Marcato
twenty eight. He's got some restaurants that are fabulous. One
up the Volcania up in Monmouth Mountain Resort, Wyo Tavern?
Is that Wyok Tavern? Or why Wyok Wyok? And that
(28:22):
is in Frederick, Maryland, Frederick, Maryland. Check it out. He's
got some other more exciting things coming. You have what
total four restaurants now we have.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Three, but we're working on some other stuff right now. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Look out for this guy. He's taken over. Michael, thank
you so very much for spending the time with us.
We'd love to have you back on to chart your
progress because it looks like you're going places and it's
not just the liquor store, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
It's everywhere, and I'd be happy to be back. I
really appreciate you guys for thinking of me and thank
you like it means a lot to me that you
reached out and this was a yeah, I can do
this all day, especially with that intro.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
You gave me our pleasure. And remember, best fans on
the planet, keep your cards and letters, come and remember
where you lead, we will follow. Stay safe everyone, Hey, everybody,
(29:42):
and don't forget Follow us on Instagram at I Am
all In podcast and email us at Gilmour at iHeartRadio
dot com.
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