September 18, 2024 • 52 mins
Born and raised in New Orleans, Chef Michael Gulotta drew inspiration from both his Sicilian great-grandmother, Gaetana, and his experience working in Liguria, for TANA Italian, his most personal restaurant concept. Chef Gulotta is also a chef-partner in two popular New Orleans Asian fusion restaurant concepts, MOPHO near City Park and Maypop in the Central Business District. Chef Gulotta discusses the inspiration and creative energy behind his restaurants and supporting a thriving workplace.
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The Connected Table is broadcast live Wednesdays at 2PM ET and Music on W4CY Radio (www.w4cy.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
The Connected Table Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-connected-table-live--1277037/support.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are
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(00:21):
W FOURCY Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Welcome to the Connected Table Live where your hosts, Melanie
Young and David Ransom. You're insatiably curious culinary couple. We
enjoy traveling the world to bring you the amazing people
who were front and center and behind the scenes and wine, food, spirits,
and hospitality. We love sharing their stories with you and
recommending place to eat, drink and enjoy and stay and
(01:02):
play wherever we go. We are broadcasting from New Orleans,
where we live today, and as many of you know,
we love spotlighting our friends who do amazing things here
in New Orleans. We love sharing what we call our
insider places to go, and this chef partner is involved
(01:23):
with three that we highly recommend that are out of
the French Quarter. We always tell people we love the
French Quarter, but broaden your horizons and also all for
an exciting global twist to what you can enjoy in
New Orleans. We're with chef Michael Gulatta, who is a
chef partner with MOFO, which is near us here in
(01:46):
near Lakeview. It's an Asian fusion restaurant, may Pop in
the Central Business District and Tana, his new and most
ambitious Italian restaurant in Metterie, which we most recently visited.
We have been to all three restaurants. Recommend them for
whatever mood you're in. And we're really excited to have
Michael on the Connected table to share his story. So welcome,
(02:09):
thank you.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
I'm excited to be here. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
I was born and raised New Orleanian, and we understand
you bank cooking and local restaurants to the young boy.
Tell us about your family life and who your family,
who your people were.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
Well, it's wild. You know my dad's side. He is
the Goalattas. They owned Gusty Tettansun Bicycles, which was was
the oldest bicycle store in America, and like almost anyone,
any any one who grew up in New Orleans bought
a bike from Dusty tettansns and so so it was
(02:45):
interesting growing up in that dynamic because I'd be in
the shop a lot when.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
I was little.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
And unfortunately my father passed away when I was young,
and then my mom tried to help run it along
with his siblings, and it ended up closing probably when
I was about six years old. And then my mom's side,
you know, she's a Violette and they the Vollets have
been in New Orleans since like seventeen fifty so old
New Orleans family.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Oh, that's a lot of tradition. What are some of
your family traditions around the table.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
Well, there's a lot on my mom's side. It's so
you know, there's a dish I'm trying to bring back
and put on the Tonnel menu because a lot of
people don't do it anymore. It's called bruce alone and
it's sort of the New Orleans Sicilian version of brush
ol ragiol and it's it is beef or theal top
(03:38):
round that's boiled and diced up eggs and parmesan bread.
Combs and parsley, and then it gets rolled up and
my grandmother would always stick it with toothpicks and he
brings it in the red bravy and serve it with
angel hair pastas. So it's like a very traditional New
Ormans dish. But it's funny because that's on my mom's
cyber they're all Irish French, so not Italian, but that's
(04:01):
that's who would make it when I was growing up.
Whereas on my on my dad's side, for the Sicilians,
you know, we we did the pasta and coshata, which
is which we do every Christmas, and that's layers of
of egg plant fried in the cast iron pan with musta,
chili pasta, pork gravy and then English peas. Then you
(04:23):
put layers of patrick Gavallo cheese and parmesan. You bake
it in the oven. Uh and you say it was
any sausage. So those are two of the two of
the big ones that my family always did.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Yeah, making me hungry, I know what, you know. I
take a lot of our friends, particularly overseas Italy, they
don't realize a strong Italian connection. Here in New Orleans.
There's some amazing uh, heritage and restaurant, particularly in the
Sicilian aspect of it.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
The French Quarter used to be called a little Palermo
for a long time. The majority of the pasta, of
the dried and package pastas in America were made in
the French Quarter. I think that was probably what early
nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 5 (05:06):
Yeah, absolutely pretty strong connection. So Michael, you owned three restaurants.
What was your initial impetus to get into food as
a career. What was that turning point for you?
Speaker 4 (05:20):
You know, I'm one of the lucky ones where I
always knew what I wanted to do. There's actually a
and I can't find it. There was a there was
a book report that I wrote in grammar school and
then I had to do a little autobiography on the
front of it. And literally I found that when I
was cleaning up my mom's house after Katrina, and it
(05:42):
said that my name is Michael Gilada and one day
I want to own restaurants. So apparently it's what I
always wanted to do. So I went like directly to
culinary school out of high school and immediately started working
in restaurants and worked for some really great chefs. So
I just it's always been what I wanted to do. Ever,
I never would I never even thought about doing anything else.
(06:02):
There was a short time where I thought about leaving
the restaurant industry when I was still in culinary school
and going into like food science. But I just love
restaurants and cooking and the adrenaline rush too much.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Now you graduated the Chef John False Institute Culinary Institute,
and you were part of the opening team in August.
That must have been incredible experience.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
It was wild, I so I think, I, yeah, that
was a wild time. The cool thing is that I
was there when we when we really started winning all
the awards, you know, I remember it was God, I think.
I mean they'd actually been open for about like three
(06:43):
or four months when I got there, But I still
consider that the opening team because it was still like
a lot of the opening team was there. And the
crazy thing was just like how many cooks were trying
to get in the door to work there at the time.
So I think I applied like ten times.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
I did.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
I They maybe do two stages, so you know, if
you know what stages are is where they have you
come in and try out. They made me to do too,
like ten hour stages before they would give me a job,
and I was so nervous and it's just crazy how
I went from being you know, the terrified new guy,
like literally fearing for my job every day and then
(07:19):
being the chef togazine for seven years.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
So wow, So you were there during you know, I
mean we probably dining there when you were the chef
because this was pre Katrina, right or was it post Katrina?
Speaker 3 (07:32):
So both?
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Okay, Yeah, so we definitely you were definitely chef when
we were there because we were there a lot after
Katrina planning our wedding in New Orleans. So you took
a probably what I would consider a grand tour in
the chef world. To what you went did. You took
some time to go to Italy and travel talk to
(07:54):
us about that and how it has inspired you as
a chef and to what you bring to New Orleans.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
Well, that was you know, I had started in August
and then you know when John gave me the job,
like he's like, hey, you know what, you know, I'm offering
the job, and I'm like, okay, I'll take the job,
and I have one sipulation and I'm leaving in a year.
I already had this whole trip planned to go work
in Italy, and he was like, you know, absolutely, that's
exactly what you should do. So I left and I
(08:24):
went to a little school in the north in Castilioli Biosti,
which is outside of the town of Osti, which is
outside of the town of Torino, in Piamonte. And so
of course Piamonte is just all the vineyards and all
the ground up Banano cheese, and you know that part
was amazing. And I spent a few months there and
then they found me a job on the coast in Ligoria,
(08:45):
in a little town called Bordighera, and I got to
work for a chef named Marco Balo. And his family
is like a storied Italian restaurant family, Like his father
owns this famous restaurant in Sanmonemo, which is like one
town over. His sister owns another restaurant. I go over
in Ventimilio, which is the town on the other side,
and so it was this amazing The restaurant was on
(09:07):
the water, it had its own private beach that was
two thousand and three, and it was like three of
us in the kitchen and we would just do hundreds
of covers and it was just pasta baked fish octopus.
We only served. He had a friend who had a boat,
and the guy would go out and fish, and his
(09:29):
wife would deliver all the seafood every day. And the
most amazing thing is that she would deliver it on
the back of her vespa. And not only that, she
was always when I thought it was, she was always
dressed to the nines.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
She always had on.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
A full dress, makeup, hair, everything, and she would pull
up and have the seafood on her shoulder on a box,
and it was always just the most beautiful ostiche, which
are the lobsters, beautiful prawns. I mean, it was just amazing.
So that's all we did was serve seafood. There was
never any meat on the menu any Every once in
(10:03):
a while he would go drive over to Anti or
over to France, and we were only took twenty minutes
from France on the French border, so Budati Geta is
the second to last town, then to Milia is the
last town, and then you're in France along the water,
and so he might he would maybe drove to France
and get some flag around. We do some flagro auditions
but mainly it was just seafood and certain like during
(10:23):
the day it was just really simple pasa toss with seafood,
and then at night we would do chasing minis only
it was just like seven or eight course tasting menus.
But we never had a menu. He would just serve
whatever he felt like serving, and uh, that was an
amazing experience and we never.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Took that beautiful air. I've been to this area, I've
not been to that restaurant, but it is really one
of my favorite areas of Italy and.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Lagoria is so under rated.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
I mean just so nobody talks about that area, and
it's like, you know, it's the home of Testo, it's
the home of Facacia, it's the home of so many
famous Italian things, and it's the one that no one
ever talks about, and it's absolutely stunning.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Now you bring some of those flavors to Tana along
with Sicily, let's talk about how you came. So I
will talk about your two Asian fusion restaurants after this.
But you know, Tana is kind of a big direction,
in a new direction because Mofo and Maypop are Asian
fusion and the foods of Liguria and sicily play heavily
(11:29):
into the menu. Talk to us about that based on
your experience living and working and cooking in Italy.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
So like it's it's amazing because Ali, it's such a
long and twisted story, because I always wanted to do
Italian and Tana was always in our back pocket, but
we needed to find the right spot, in the right
because you know, Tana needed to be a grand restaurant,
So it was always the one we were sort of holding,
like I said, in our back pocket until we could
(11:58):
find the rights partner is in the right space, and
so you know, but Ligoria plays so heavily into the menu.
But the fried calamari act, which everyone I'm not going
to I was fought on the on the calamaria affter
because it's not the traditional New Orleans calamaria, which is
like big thick rings fried kind of heavy with them,
with the with the marin air saucer dipping it in
(12:20):
like it's the very New Orleans I think, just a
very American Italian way to do it. But I was like, no,
I'm doing it the way we did the Ligoria, which
is shaved paper paper thin, and then you do it
with paper thin slices of zucchini and you fry it
like a haystack and just hit it with with women's juice.
And it was just when we we were. It was
always one of the starters on our tasting menu at
(12:42):
the restaurant. June Ketto is the name of the restaurant.
It's not under the same chef anymore. I'm not even
sure if it's still there, but restaurant Dum Ketto, we
always did this this Calumbia app and I just loved
how light and just fresh it made the calamari taste,
and so I made sure that that was a part
of the menu, I mean obvious. And we've doctored up
a little bit. Instead of doing just straight lemon juice,
(13:02):
we do this really awesome uh myra lemon and orange
immigrants that we address it with, and then we also
finish it with our housemade pepera to and now and
in the beginning it was everyone kept asking for sides
the marin airsauce with it there and then, But the
more our regulars would taste it, They're like, you know what,
this is just a great dish. Now, you know, I'm
maybe sell Ton like just a ludicrous amount of cala
(13:23):
mario at the restaurant. So that's a big one that
I'm so happy. Uh really took off on the menu.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
And we had it was delicious.
Speaker 5 (13:34):
It was delicious and as our as our really every
dish we had while we were there. We there once
so far and obviously want to come back. But you
have a lot of great things on the menu, some
beautiful pastas.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
The pasta I really loved, because you know, the pastas
I want to talk about because there are traditional pastas
here in the world. There are a lot of traditional
Italian restaurants, but you take it to as you said,
it's elevated. I have the Gulf shrimp pacerri with pistachio
which is a Sicilian nod and tomato cream. It was fabulous.
(14:07):
And I think, David, did you have the radiatory with
strachi and the Chilabrian chili christ I.
Speaker 5 (14:13):
Had the blue creba think fusili, which is fine.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (14:20):
I never wanted that dish to be empty, you.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Know, And I took that one off the menu and
it just caused an uproar. Uh, you can't do that,
I know.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
I mean, that's and that's that's the problem is like
you know, and this is the problem I followed all
my restaurants. It's like, I want to have a restaurant
where you're gonna keep seeing new things when you come
in through the door, and and and it might come back,
and it might come back on different guys, you know,
and you know, and that's the thing is. And now,
like switting pastas are a big thing in New Orleans.
(14:48):
But like I was a revelation to me when I
went to Ligoria and swimming pasta and swing you know,
the swinning prisotto's like those things you know, you never
saw in New Orleans and so and it's funny because
I put it on the menu at Tina, and still
there's a lot of people in that area that are
just like, I didn't know you could make spinning pasta.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
And you're like, absolutely, but that this is, you.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
Know, definitely one that I have done versions of at
the original Tuna, which is a little pop up on
two Lane Avenue, and then uh, and then I do
it again then at Maypop. Like I love that combination
of flavors, the crab meat, the spinning pasta. But then
I always add the New Orleans saw hot sausage which
just adds a whole other level of flavor. And it's
(15:30):
one that anyone who grew up in New Orleans because
we just crumble patents Hot sausage into it, which is
like the hot sausage patty that you get it every
ploboy shop and that like my mom used to keep
frozen packs of in there in the freezer from when
I was hungry, you know, growing up, I can always
pull out a patty of Pattens hot sausage and make
myself the sandwich. So it's like it's nostalgic. So now
on Winians eating, they're like, there's something in here that's
(15:51):
that I recognize. You're like, yeah, it's the Patent's hot
sausage paired with crab meat, you know, and then we're
just tossing it with all that butter in the in
the pasta.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
It's absolutely in amaze.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
What's nice that there's there's distinctly with the dishes a
Louisiana aspect, whether it's a Louisiana crawfish with potato and yoki,
the Gulf shrimp of carriers I mentioned, you mentioned the sausage,
which we're gonna have to go pick some up and
that's just the pastas I mean, we we took a
(16:22):
lot home. I will say the portions are generous, which
we are grateful for because everyone's you know, trying to
get the most out of their dining experience right now.
And we also just want our listeners to know that Tana,
which is located in a beautiful area called METAe, is
open for lunch and dinner and cocktails. And there's parking,
(16:42):
which we like because that's kind of a challenge here
when you live in New Orleans. So I do want
to mention what we had for our appetizers, because we
find whenever we dine out anywhere, particularly fine you're dining,
the appetizers are always the stars in your case. Everything start.
We had the Caulu mari and I had the savory
(17:06):
zeppee with Cajun caviar. It's like a fried bosh. Now
we would call that a giant hush puppy in the
Southern with herbed lardo butter. And they were just like giant.
They were bigger than golf balls, they were very and
smaller than tennis ball, but they were delicious. We were
dying to try, but we just couldn't. You know, our
(17:27):
eyes were bigger than our stomach. The barbecued lobster because
it's really hard to get lobster in New Orleans, and
you do it with Creole Sicilian barbecue, which sounded very interesting.
I'll see as your menu because we know that some
of these dishes are seasonal but based on what's available.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
So we just changed thirty percent of the menu in
the last two weeks. So the lobster is off, mainly
just because lopsters kind of not in season at the moment.
I was kind of forcing that one for a little while,
so that one came off. And now we've just been
on a really awesome octopus dish, so we did it.
We now have an octopus appetiser with with resulta Chrispi
(18:07):
Resota Metro or we make the resulta and then we
fry it in a cast iron pan A get it
really crispy, and we put that the octopus over that
and we top it with smoked tomato and bone marrow.
So that's that's the new octopus dish that just replaced
the lobster we took. We we just put a new
Land dish on. I love really playing with the Italian cuisine.
The sweet and the salty, or the sweet and the sour.
(18:29):
So like we're doing a slow braised lamb shrank now,
and that's getting top. I make a marm latta. So
it's it's citrus marmalade with roasted donalic and olives. And
so it's that play of the of the briny and
the sweet and a little bit of spice. We had
some chili to it and you put that over that
slow braised lamb shank and just those flavors, and I
(18:52):
braise the lamb shank like you would do in Ligoria
or Provence. There's a lot of crossover between the Gloria
and Promonce. Yeah, And like I use Tadjiaska olives, and
Tadjiaska olives are basically nisois olives just they're done, they're
just grind differently, So I use the Tadjaska olves. And
(19:12):
so just like I don't know, there's flavors with the lamb,
the olives and the roasted garlic is just so reminiscent
of the things that I that I.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Was trained in.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
But then I make up on my own because I
fold it all into that marmalade. So you have this
these crazy flavors going on, and that's a lot of
that I learned, you know, doing mofo and maypop, because
you know, the cornerstone of Southeast Asian cooking is hot, sour, selty, sweet,
and so I bring a lot of that now to
the dishes a tana and it just people you're just like,
oh my god, because it's hitting you all over your
(19:42):
palate and it makes you I'm a huge fan of
eating through your dishes. So whenever I come up with
dishes with my chipagaizines, we're not allow of hood on
the mediu until we sit there and eat the entire dish,
and they're like, they're like, oh my god, why do
we eat the entire thing? I'm like, because if it's
if the proportions are wrong, if you put too much
of one thing, then the this is left with too
much of one thing, and then they get bored with
the dish. It has to sort of all finish at
(20:04):
the same time. And I love dishes that sort of
change as you eat through them to keep the guest interested,
because if you know, you say I talk about the portions,
and I almost I fight at my mind with the
portions because sometimes the portions are too big, Like we
had a giant pork chop on them in you and
I took it off because the portion was so big
that when the guest gets bored of eating, then they
(20:25):
leave with kind of a bored remembrance of the restaurant.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
Right if it's like these massive, massive portions.
Speaker 4 (20:32):
And so I try to make sure that everything on
the plate is in balance so that you know, I mean, obviously,
if they just get border too much food, that's one thing.
But sometimes there's just like this giant, massive amount of food,
the guess just kind of gets bored with the experience.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
I think it's just be like to order a lot.
You know, it never goes out of season. Guys, Michael
and David. Two things. Your giant meatballs, which we had
a meatball, and you do a poster and you do
apasta cart similar to what we've seen in the Venice
with the giant round of parmesan over giano and and
then the tag the Itelli made it inside. We did
not have that, but it was wheeling around and we
(21:06):
were salivating, but you know, we couldn't order any more food.
Speaker 5 (21:10):
I love I love how we put on the on
the menu in print. We're not quite sure when the
pasta card is going to show up if you order it,
but it will get to you.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yeah, that must be incredibly popular.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Well that's the that's the whole issues.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
People would order that as their entree and so and
then so like we're sitting there waiting, and then like
we tell them because again we even tell the guests
it's like, hey, we cannot ensure when it's going to
get there. We say, it's like, you have to think
about it. And as like the Oyster Struckers in New Orleans,
if you order oysters, you don't know whomen and your meal.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
They're going to get there. They're going to come at.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
Any point they want to, because the Oyster Strucker has
a long rune of tickets and you know, so it's
not going to come with your ass with your entrees.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
It just comes when it comes.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
And we try to tell guests that and because the
problem is all the rest of the foodle hit the
table and everyone will wait and their food will get cold,
and the right guys, we cannot, like there's so many
people trying to get that pasta card, we cannot ensure
you that it will arrive when you'd like, because on
some nights, on a busy night, we'll sell forty five
of those pasta cards and each one takes five minutes,
(22:09):
you know, So it's it's almost yeah, So it's it's
it's not always going to get there when you want to,
but it is a great experience. Lucky that we have these.
We have three cooks who are because it's it's very
hard to find a cook that also likes to talk
to people. That are two things that really don't go together,
because look's like to be in the kitchen. And there's
been a few nights where I made some of my
some of my cooks is like our two people that
(22:30):
are trained to do the pasta card, one of them,
you know, couldn't be there. So I made one of
my back house cooks go out there and they're like,
I'll do this for you this once, but I'd never
want to go out and do this again because I
do not feel comfortable talking to the tables and you're like,
I understand. So I've been very lucky that we found
a few people who are about going to the table,
putting on the full production. They talked about the history
(22:51):
of this, they talked about the fact that we actually
use ran up and Dono's hit a parmes on and
so you know, and they talked them through the whole
process and it's a really an amazing experience and people
love it.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
It's called tagnate montecata forma the Grana padanna. Uh. And
why do you choose grown up padonna? Just out of curiosity?
Speaker 4 (23:12):
So because I trained in Fiamante and Grana padana is
produced in the Po River Valley, which is right by
where I was. So we spent time like going and
touring and like everywhere we always had grown up donna cheese.
And I also got to go and tour uh some
grana panano, you know aging, uh, manufacturing, So we got
to go watch the whole process and go into the
(23:33):
age of the giant aging warehouses that are massive and
snow like nothing you've ever smelled in your life before
in your life. And I just it's a it's a
much more powerful cheese, I find, you know, it's a
little more aggressive than parmesan.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Well I just want to point that out because I
said parmesan, but it's granda pandanna and they're very different,
very different. We can't wait to come back and try
that dish.
Speaker 5 (23:53):
You know, I want to go back to the octopus
that you said that you put on the menu. We
actually were there, I think the first you had it
on the menu, or maybe the second, and the service said,
this just went on the menu and we hope you
like it. And it was absolutely delicious. Oh yeah, I
did order it. It was the most tender, beautiful piece
of octopus I've had in a long time. And I've
been to you know, islands in the Mediterranean to.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Have it fresh, etc.
Speaker 5 (24:18):
It was just delicious. And I really didn't I didn't
want that dish to end either, Melanie, to be honest
with you.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
So good we didn't want the evening. Yeah, and it
really was an incredible experience, and you know, David reconnected
with an old friend and the wine business.
Speaker 5 (24:34):
It was interesting to walk in the door and see
my old friend Steve Russet, who's your wine director, who
I've known for many, many years when he was the
wine director for emerald for a long time, Emeralds over
on Chopatula Street, and he and it was like a
family reunion when I walked in the door and saw
him there. We hadn't seen each other in years and
(24:56):
it was just great to reconnect with him. And he's
put together a great wine list for you as well.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Absolutely a challenge in New Orleans they find a really
great wine list, it is.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
And I mean, obviously he's the master, you know, he's
he's done so many great wine lists in the city
and so we're very lucky to have him and and
to watch him work.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
I mean, his palate, his palate is just unmatched.
Speaker 4 (25:19):
And and then the watch the way he educates our staff,
you know, he does he does wine classes every week,
and uh, it's he's such an asset and his excitement
just to keep to to you know, to double click
down on each thing and really find out, you know,
to really find those great producers and make sure we
(25:40):
have them on the list. I mean, it really is.
We're very lucky.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Yeah, and it shows, and and that's it's it really
really shows. Let's talk about your partner in the business.
Let's talk about your team of partners and give them
a shout out as well, and let's do a touch
also on your other two restaurants so that we make
sure we give them some love.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
Mm hmm. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
So so I have one like my business partner is
Jeffrey Body. So he and I have all three restaurants
like we run. We we run the three and then
so we are the managing partners of Tana and then
we have two of well we have three other business
partners in Tana.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
So you know, we have Christopher Keane who he has.
Speaker 4 (26:25):
U Rivershak, which is kind of an old school in
New Orleans restaurant. Well he just opened the new ones,
so he has two River Shacks now, and then you
know we have and then we have Gabe Corgioni and
who has the Fat Post pizza brand. Uh and but
this is his sort of first Forrame the fine dining.
(26:46):
And then we have John Georges, who is you know
of of gallus Wise fame and so but if the
the great part is is they're they're they're very hands off,
you know, and they just want you know, they come
through and they enjoy what we're doing. And and you
know the main thing is that they just wanted to
(27:07):
have this amazing restaurant and and and they originally were
just going to bring us on to consult. And the
more we looked at it, like hey, you know, we
can we can make this a really grand restaurant, and
so then we decided to all become partners and and
it is just god is we found a really great
interior designer and she put so much effort into it
(27:27):
and was just such a force behind making sure everything
looked just just the right way. And and then we
just assembled a really really great team.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
You know.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
We we brought on Steve, and we we brought on
a lot of you know, our bar manager was with
us years ago at August, and our AGM the same thing,
started with me as a food runner at August and
worked his way up to management in the Best Group
and then in the Link group. You know, he was
most recently the AGM at Koshon and so like we
just and then our general manager has been you know,
we he came to us from a Gulf of Garskia
(27:58):
who's a good friend and Golfha reached out to me,
was like, you need to bring this guy on, like
he's he's a he's a rock star, and he is.
And so you know, I just find we've we've assembled
this great team. You know, we're eight months in and
and I feel like we're just really getting started. Like
there's so many more like that this restaurant is just
going to keep growing and evolving as the staff as
we develop this culture, because it takes time to develop
(28:20):
a culture. I always say it takes a it takes
a year to open a restaurant. It really does. You're
working out so many kinks in the first year and
really developing a culture that when a new person comes in,
they see how everyone works and they immediately either rise
to that level or they or they leave.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
I want to, you know, let's give a shout out
to the designer because it is quite beautiful. Particularly those
lanterns in the center of the lantern life.
Speaker 4 (28:46):
Are Breuner is her name, and she has a company
called Distressed Rentals and so her ma. She has this
huge facility out in Elmwood, and she has two master
carpenters on staff and each team. And so what they
do is they design like custom custom furniture and bars
(29:06):
for like events, so like they kind of have like
base furniture and then the people will have if if
someone's throwing a particular event, like they will change the
upholstery on it and change the way it looks and
the way it's set up for it. Like for literally
like something that might last two or three days and
then it's only for that event and then it gets
like broken down and used for and change into something
for another event. Like it's crazy what she does.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
And you know her team built a lot of that furniture. Uh,
custom built the furniture, custom built, the lays like it's
it really is unreal what she does.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
It's she'd she'd be there till she'd be there.
Speaker 4 (29:44):
She wouldn't show up to like like just so she
get working. You'd wait for the construction guys were done,
and she like up, she'd work. She'd walk into like
eight pm and sit there untill like one in the morning,
just working on stuff while that while that restaurant was
being built, she was there all the time.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
My impression when I walked in, walked around and looked
at the detail, because the bar area is quite elegant too.
The restaurant has that elegance that you would find in
New York or Los Angeles. There's space between the tables.
The cocktail lounge area is like very it's not cozy,
but it's cozy. And this is the way you have
(30:18):
the round boothe you know, the bankheads and the bar
and in the back, there's an homage to the person
who inspired the name.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
Yes, my great grandmother. Yes, yes, the most Sicilian name.
Her name was Gaetana Giacona, and the Giaconas were pretty
you know, are well known in New Orleans as well. Actually,
all of the if you come from marnigrap foror the
Monigros cups, those are all all those Monigrath cups that
are thrown are all made by Giacona Plastics, which is
(30:50):
like a distant cousin of mine, and it's all from
the same Giacona family that came Uh.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
It's funny.
Speaker 4 (30:56):
My great grandmother was actually born in New Orleans, then
brought back and raised in Kalermo, and then brought back
and met her husband. And you know, their house used
to be one like two houses off the corner of
the Esplanad rampart and so that's literally where my dad
spent a lot of his time being raised. And I
(31:18):
actually used to go there a lot when I was little. Yeah,
So it's just a crazy I just love the New
Orleans stories just because, you know, so many. Just being
at Port City, there's just so many. It's almost like
New York. There's so many stories that these people sort
of coming in and out, and I just loved the
(31:38):
fact that she was actually born here but raised in
Palermo and came back. She barely smoke any English. She
almost killed me like three times when I was little
because she'd always give me hard candies when I was
like three years old.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
So anyway, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
It's a lovely plaque in the back, and we encourage
anyone who visits to walk that bar.
Speaker 5 (31:55):
It's a beautiful restaurant and it's got some great food too.
You know, let's talk about your other two restaurants, and
you know interesting, we keep talking about Italian food. We've
been talking about that for half an hour now. But
your first restaurant, Mofo, is Asian, as is your other restaurant, Maypop.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
So so you.
Speaker 5 (32:14):
Actually so you actually you grew up Italian and then
you walked away from it to open a restaurant. I
think that's pretty interesting. Tell us about MOFO and how
it got started.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
It's absolute lenacy, is what it is. And I want
to be as honest about it as I can.
Speaker 4 (32:28):
Now.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
You know, I was in a situation.
Speaker 4 (32:32):
Where I really, I really wanted to get out and
start my own thing, and and I was trying to
find investors to honestly do to do tannel and it's
we never knew. It's hard to see where you're at
when you're in it. And so I've been the Shephizine
in August for seven years. I really wanted to get
(32:53):
out of there. You know, there was just a lot,
it was just getting very hot. It was a very
pressure cooker situation. And to take to become the chef
and like like do it plan and buy it from
him and I'm like.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
No, man, this is not what I want to do.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
And one of our captains was a guy named Jeffrey
Bibby and I know him since high school. And he's like, hey,
I think and and because i'd kind of on the
back end, been going out and trying to find them
open my own restaurant. And it was crazy, and I
was trying to open Italian restaurants. I just skept getting
a whole lot of news and I was like, okay,
well this is you know, this is not easy. And
(33:35):
uh He's like, hey, I think I can get us
some funding. He's like, but let's just like go open
something small and simple first. And then you know, at
that time, I'd been getting so many nos and I
was like, Okay, well I guess that this is probably
the way to do it. I'll just go do this
a little restaurant. And he's like, yeah, we're just going
to open Like He's like, let's just do like a
little casual spot. And we decided on Phu because there
(33:57):
was no Fu in the area in Mid City where
we ended up opening Mofo. And we all would go
and eat be in the Eastwood on our days off,
like that was all of our favorite cuisine, like all
the all the chefs and bartenders and servers, we would
all go eat V and MS on our day off
because otherwise it was just the New Orleans heavy New
Orleans suit, because no one's food can be very rich
and very heavy. And Vidamea Street was bright and refreshing,
(34:20):
and so that is what we would do in our
ass like we're going to open a restaurant for our
industry friends in mid City because back then all the
industry people lived in Mid City and so this was
the move and you know a lot of at that time,
a lot of fine dining chefs were leaving and going
and opening more casual restaurants. I think was that was
sort of the way the pendulum was swinging at the time.
(34:40):
But the crazy part was we wanted to go open
it and we ended up on all these national most
anticipated lists. We're like, oh my god, and because it
was just going to be a simple, little like Fuzs
Shop and I'm like, okay, well, we need to re
engineer this now and make it something bigger.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
And we did.
Speaker 4 (34:57):
And it was this crazy fusion of New Orleans and Vietnam.
And I mean the opening menu had whole fry fish
on it. I think we had we had Crispy Krispy
rice cakes with Oonie on it. I mean like we
were doing. We had a home grilled pig's feet in
in crab broth with the crab meat in myreland and
salad on top. Like it was this wild menu. And
(35:21):
it was crazy because in the by the second year
we were opened, we were, you know, we were on
phone Apps top fifty. We were I was a food
and Wine best new.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
Chef I was. It was.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
It was New Orleans Magazine's mesty restaurant. It was New
Orleans Magazine's restaurant of the Year. I mean, this little
flash shop in vid City that looks like a bar
on the inside was winning all these national awards. But
it also taught me like I really did love that.
So it was funny because one of my own servers
(35:54):
sent me some of the old lunch menues in August,
because originally I was only a really a lot to
put my dishes on the lunchmnue at August. By the
time I left a lot of them, maybe it was
mine and all those old lunchmen he's had a ton
of like Vietnamese and ty food on it because I
just love I've always loved those flavors. And when I
was traveling through Europe, you know, I lived in Germany
(36:15):
for a year and a half and if I wanted,
the closest thing I could get to on was Typhoon.
And I think because we take the same ethos in
New Orleans be where something was very balanced with the
hot sour. It's like a curry to me, yel it
has because you know, instead of using you know, here
we use the trinity and you know, saus and we
(36:37):
had lemon and then so there's those same balance as
a hot pour salty eat in New.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
Orleans, there is in Southeast Asia.
Speaker 4 (36:43):
So I've always loved that and I was able to
sort of take that and run with it. And that
became sort of the ethos for for MOFO, which was,
you know, what would a second or third generation Vietnamese
American cook for the house US from Lafayette, Right, So
like they would make it, they would make an a
two fade, but instead of using the traditional trinity, they
(37:05):
would add lemon grass, they would add lime leaf. They
would instead of using butter and cream, they would use
coconut note. But you would still use crawfish, but still
use you still rice, and so many of these things
are so so similar that if you just tweak a
couple of the items, it becomes a whole new cuisine
that both cultures can recognize. That came the whole and
(37:29):
it just resonated. People just loved it. And that's and
then so we had the chance to open Maypop. And
with Maypop, we were like, oh, let's just go, Let's
do the Italian restaurant. I'm like, I don't know, man,
now I'm in love with this usion thing. What if
we take Italian and mix it with all the flavors
like New Orleans Italian mix it with all the flavors
(37:50):
of the Mekong delta, and that's what Maypop is. Honestly,
like it's if Asta is tossed with handground curries with
Louisiana seafood. But it was funny because Maypop really never
had the chance to get there. I mean it opened
in twenty seventeen. By twenty nineteen, I mean we were
by two thousand and nine on you know, on Persons
(38:13):
Top ten, we were on we were all on Condonast
Top twenty for New Orleans.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
I mean like it had finally made it. In twenty nineteen.
Speaker 4 (38:22):
We were busy every day and then the pandemic camps
and so it kind of took the wind down of
apop sales and then so since then, I mean we
were just like if I'm still I love the food
we do there. I love the animation of it. On
the Complements is one of my line coaches, so it'd
worked all over the country. He's like, man, like, y'all
are creating here, which I was, which to me was
(38:44):
a huge compliment. I was like, yeah, we really are.
I mean, just it's so much fun. The things that
we're doing were ever were so invested the cuisine and
then it just got the like I said, the wind
knock out of it. And it's you know, it's kind
of started along for the last two or three years
and now only have a new shift togazine and he
is putting so much new uh a new jam before
(39:09):
pandemic and you know, now they're shifting almost entirely tasting
menus and and it's really coming along now, uh, coming
back to life that we're excited about.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
What's interesting. So Mofo and may Pop are very different
in their styles. Mofo for us is our casual place.
We love to go there for lunch or after. We
went after jazz Fest quite a bit because it was
like on the route home and we could just pull
at the bar and even take out. Maypop is a
lot more. There's another level of sophistication in it. And
(39:43):
we had a friend lives in that area and we
had a really wonderful dinner. We need to do a revisit.
You mentioned tasting menus, and I think this is an
interesting topic because I think a number of restaurants around
the country are moving to that. There was a movement
away from tasting menus for a while and now there
seems to be a movement back, and I think it's
because of the pandemic. I'd like you to talk about
(40:06):
the bit. You know, we're lucky in New Orleans in
the month of August, they do these, They do casing
menus anytime they want to bring in more customers. And
we've been taking advantage of the short culinary menus. But
the chasing menu is something that it can be divisive
with people. What do you think is why do you
think that it is a good decision?
Speaker 4 (40:25):
Well, so host pandemic that the new world we're living
in is now is the supreme Batts labor right, So
cooks are making thirty percent more than they were before pandemic,
and everyone should make a Liverpool wage before pandemic, not
(40:47):
a little wait, they just work. So now you know
books are making They were eighteen and twenty dollars an
hour across the anyone I know that I played our restaurants.
Everyone's making between eighteen and twenty two dollars hour. And
that changes the dynamic of how you can do it.
And it's like, you know, so I go to my
to my managers and I'm like, guys, this is you
(41:07):
know the numbers of the numbers, you can't fake them.
So if we all want to make more than we
have to do it with less or we have to
charge way more. And so you know, also we've engineered
and used to just do it with because most we
can't go up on its price. Like MOFO is a
neighborhood joint. You know it has to you know that
(41:30):
it may Pop. I mean, downtown New Orleans is not great.
You know the pandemic. No one Now everyone works half
from home. So it used to be you had a
huge lunch ground. You know, every day at Maypop we
would do sixty to eighty covers for lunch. Now we're
not even open for lunch because no one is. There
(41:50):
are no everyone I'm talking to that you work downtown.
Now their companies might make them come in two days
a week, right, so maybe there's maybe two days that
they have to come in to do to do work.
Speaker 3 (42:01):
So that's viable.
Speaker 4 (42:03):
So now maybe not solely dependent on tourism. And the
switch to the tasing menu is like, okay, well, if
someone's here traveling for tourism or traveling for a convention,
then they're going to be willing to spend a little more,
and so let's just see how far, you know, what
(42:23):
are people really open to? And so we put the
tasting menu on it, and we don't force tasing you.
It's an option. But we have found that now a
center of our covers get to us, and it has
raised our guests caverage by forty dollars. And so now
we're doing a third of the covers we used to,
but we've been able to raise our guestrick canverage to
(42:45):
where the least we're able to make enough revenue to
be there until Downtown either shifts or comes back, or
or we move the restaurant or something along those lines.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
Well, it's interesting. I would think that tasting menu also
can deal with what must be the incredible amount of
food waste.
Speaker 4 (43:07):
But I mean that so we kind of it's tricky
for us because yeah, if you go full tasting menu,
that helps. And it's even better if you can have
a full tasting menu in a restaurant where you know
the number of covers coming in each night, like for real,
like for us, we still have the problem that god
we might have and this is this is the true
severity and scariness of Downtown. The walls right now, especially
(43:27):
in the summer, we might have five people in the books,
but then we'll do forty five, like we'll have that
many walkins, which is just insanity, Uh, to have that
many walkins and then them all do tasting mans. So
it makes it really hard for staffing. It makes it
really hard for labor costs these days because people of
ease of reservations, people honestly don't use them as much.
(43:51):
Like they'll just walk in and they're like, oh, you know,
we didn't know y'all were here, and oh you're the
tasting menu and somebody you'll sell twenty tasting menus when
you had nothing on the books that night, and it's
you know, it can be very very stressful.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
So you're saying that you prefer reservations versus walkins.
Speaker 4 (44:07):
I mean, I'll take I'll take whenever you give me.
But if for tasting menus, because we have it. If
you go to open table, there's both options. You can
just get a regular reservation or you can get a
tasting menu reservation. Then we can kind of know how
many resume tasting menus are coming in. But still we
haven't been we I don't think we have not been
a tasing menu restaurant long enough for people to trust us,
(44:30):
and they just make the regular reservation because they're not sure.
But the tasting menu, then they come in, they read it,
they're like, oh, this looks great, and then they do
the tasting menu, and then we end up selling how
much tasting menus.
Speaker 2 (44:39):
It's interesting. I mean, we're guilty of the walk in
a lot. Sometimes we just don't know. And New Orleans
is fickle because you never know what the rain, et cetera.
You know, one bad rainstorm and boom. But here's the
good news. Here's the good news. New Orleans is getting
the Super Bowl in twenty twenty five, and of course
there's the Taylor Swift thing coming up in the fall
of twenty twenty four. So I think that we think,
(45:00):
you know, downtown New Orleans and mid city is going
to get a boost with that, and there's some interesting
hotels that have opened. So I think that that's a
really great thing because a lot of people come and
they actually don't know where to go right close to
the super Dome and close to entertainment, So that's an
advantage that I think is going to help all the
restaurants in that location.
Speaker 4 (45:20):
Yeah, we're already we're already almost booked for the weekend
of Sailor Swifts and that's a month and a half out.
Speaker 3 (45:26):
That's great.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
Wow, that's so amazing. That's exciting. You know, we you know,
we need more of that in New Orleans and more
awareness of what's around it. We get that question all
the time from people who say, what's around this area?
So that proximity factor is really really great. So, you know,
you've got three restaurants, you're quite busy. Where do you
(45:51):
go on your Where do you go when you kick back?
We always like to ask chefs and restaurant owners, where's
that little place you go where you can be anonymous
and have a good meal. Uh?
Speaker 3 (46:05):
Where do I go? I don't know, I don't know. Anonymous?
Speaker 2 (46:10):
Is hard tack the anonymous out of it because we
asked this to Isaac Tubes and I don't think he's
anonymous anywhere, but he go with this neighborhood place, and
then we like, I tailed over there.
Speaker 4 (46:22):
No, I mean, you know, like I always I haven't
been there forever, but I U still I used to
love going to Liaises, I up going to Theses on
the end with the big frosty because they do the
friend schileta. I love a friend. So here's big popular
(46:42):
opinion is that I don't like muffle outas like the
bread of the muffla is on. I find it sinks
up all the oil and it's kind of greasy. But
I love a French schiletta, which is a which is
the mufflot on French bread that they toast and get
really get it really warm, melt the cheese, getting a
really crunchy because I'm a big texture person, so like
a French chillletta to me is the best thing. And
(47:03):
uh lais is always the lases on. Bienville has the
French schiletta in the in the in the big icy
muggs of mirror and so. And they also do bushwhackers
if you want to get your you know, you just
want to get trashed. So that's a great one. And
if I'm and if I want to sneak away and
get a cocktail, I go to twelve mile in it
(47:23):
just because it's a dive bar with really good cocktails.
Speaker 5 (47:26):
Oh yeah, that we had Bull Newton on the show.
Speaker 3 (47:28):
He was great.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
He has Yeah, I think he's still there. We hadn't
have been there in a while, so.
Speaker 4 (47:36):
And I had to do a fundraiser together and it
was a talent show. Uh and it was at Saturn
Bar and that was a whole lot of fun.
Speaker 5 (47:45):
He's a great he's a great guy.
Speaker 3 (47:46):
We had him on.
Speaker 5 (47:47):
It was just after tails in the Cocktail. Yeah, quite
some time talk about New Orleans cocktails and the.
Speaker 2 (47:51):
Losers at the Trap and not Louses Midst, which is
actually near us. So I'm sure we'll high tail. We
like the high tail over to wherever people tell us
to go and check things out, because there's the city
has so much you could just you know, somebody actually commented,
do you just all you do is eat out? And
I kind of have my tail between my legs. No,
we eat home also, but there's just so there's just
(48:13):
so many amazing places to try and a lot of
them are hole in the walls that you are local
has to tell you about, right, absolutely.
Speaker 4 (48:23):
And it's hard because I also want to support, like,
you know, my friends who have new restaurants, because the
Lord knows if you have a new restaurant, you need
that support as well. Yeah, it's hard, and there's so
many restaurants in such a small area. People don't believe
me that, you know where a population of like three
hundred thousand with fifteen hundred restaurants. Yeah, it's it's you know,
it's absolutely insanity. We like there, like I don't know,
(48:44):
because I really love food.
Speaker 3 (48:45):
I'm not sure we.
Speaker 2 (48:47):
Love food too, And if I had my way, I
would eat out every night, and you know I am always.
Even yesterday when I was going to get a medical test,
I slipped into a place that a local friend told
me about that soon for local and really down, you know,
really and have my little half of a half of
a pull boy oister Bullow pull boy, just to say
(49:07):
I tried it, but it was like a little died
and it's like you find these places all around and
it's so much fun. But you know, on the flip side,
you know, Tana made us feel very grown up and
we got dressed up and you don't have to be
dressed up, you can, you know, but we we wanted
to be good when we went there because it's just
it's a beautiful one side.
Speaker 4 (49:28):
It really, I mean it's now at the point where
I can walk around the dining room and be like, man,
we created a really really amazing, cool viety restaurant that
you know that I never it's still it takes me
a back whole lot because you know, I'm always in
the nuts on the bolt side in the kitchen, you know,
grinding it out and just kind of walk around the
dining room and see where how far we've come just
(49:49):
in the in the eight months we've been opened. Is
it feels really good?
Speaker 2 (49:54):
Yeah, Well, it's nice to be able to kind of
dress up and go out in the in the city
where everyone's in shorts and flip flops and shifts all
the time just because of the hate. It's nice to
feel like you can go out and have an evening
or lunch out and have a great meal and feel
feel feel boddled.
Speaker 4 (50:10):
Yeah, and I love the lunch now. So we're only
doing lunch Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I think we're going to
move it to Thursday too, but like the Friday love
vibe is just it reminds me of you know, you know,
when you're in New York you can always go get
a reasonably priced well it's like a cheap way to
go experience a great restaurant, right, And it's like, you know,
whenever I'm in New York, I always like to pop
(50:31):
in and in between services at Marea and get the
bone Narrow Octopus Coasta. Like that's just one of my
that's just one of my go like whenever I'm in
New York, I just pop in because you can always
get it no matter what time of the day, and
and you know, and it's the same thing with where
you can you can pop in and have that experience,
you know, and it's a lighter area field than dinner.
And so that's I want to I want to have
(50:54):
that option at time because I love and the other Like,
you know, we only launch Lunch a month and a
half ago, but like two fridays ago, I mean I
think we did eighty covers and it was just that
same energy. It was just like everyone was having a
good time. The food's a lot lighter at lunch, and
and I love that energy of elegant but but light
(51:14):
that you that you only usually that I only ever
found it in New York restaurants at lunchtime.
Speaker 2 (51:20):
You know, sometimes you just want to pop in and
have that one dish and just make it a misty
glass of wine. I'm like that, well, you know, Mike,
We've really enjoyed talking to you. We've come to the end.
We have to wrap up, but we've been talking with
Michael Golotta. The three restaurants we're talking about are all
worthy of visiting and revisiting, Mofo, Maypop, and Tana Uh.
(51:41):
They just really show the diversity and deliciousness that New
Orleans has to offer and why we chose to settle here.
Thank you so much for joining us on the Connected Table.
Speaker 3 (51:51):
Oh it was a lot of fun. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (51:54):
And for all of you listening, come to New Orleans.
It's time for a visit and time for a revisit.
There's a lot going on and we want you always
to stay insatiably curious.
The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are
solely those of the hosts and their guests and not
those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We
make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services,
or products mentioned on air or on our web. No
liability explicitor implied shall be extended to W FOURCY Radio
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be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing
(00:21):
W FOURCY Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Welcome to the Connected Table Live where your hosts, Melanie
Young and David Ransom. You're insatiably curious culinary couple. We
enjoy traveling the world to bring you the amazing people
who were front and center and behind the scenes and wine, food, spirits,
and hospitality. We love sharing their stories with you and
recommending place to eat, drink and enjoy and stay and
(01:02):
play wherever we go. We are broadcasting from New Orleans,
where we live today, and as many of you know,
we love spotlighting our friends who do amazing things here
in New Orleans. We love sharing what we call our
insider places to go, and this chef partner is involved
(01:23):
with three that we highly recommend that are out of
the French Quarter. We always tell people we love the
French Quarter, but broaden your horizons and also all for
an exciting global twist to what you can enjoy in
New Orleans. We're with chef Michael Gulatta, who is a
chef partner with MOFO, which is near us here in
(01:46):
near Lakeview. It's an Asian fusion restaurant, may Pop in
the Central Business District and Tana, his new and most
ambitious Italian restaurant in Metterie, which we most recently visited.
We have been to all three restaurants. Recommend them for
whatever mood you're in. And we're really excited to have
Michael on the Connected table to share his story. So welcome,
(02:09):
thank you.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
I'm excited to be here. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
I was born and raised New Orleanian, and we understand
you bank cooking and local restaurants to the young boy.
Tell us about your family life and who your family,
who your people were.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
Well, it's wild. You know my dad's side. He is
the Goalattas. They owned Gusty Tettansun Bicycles, which was was
the oldest bicycle store in America, and like almost anyone,
any any one who grew up in New Orleans bought
a bike from Dusty tettansns and so so it was
(02:45):
interesting growing up in that dynamic because I'd be in
the shop a lot when.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
I was little.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
And unfortunately my father passed away when I was young,
and then my mom tried to help run it along
with his siblings, and it ended up closing probably when
I was about six years old. And then my mom's side,
you know, she's a Violette and they the Vollets have
been in New Orleans since like seventeen fifty so old
New Orleans family.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Oh, that's a lot of tradition. What are some of
your family traditions around the table.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
Well, there's a lot on my mom's side. It's so
you know, there's a dish I'm trying to bring back
and put on the Tonnel menu because a lot of
people don't do it anymore. It's called bruce alone and
it's sort of the New Orleans Sicilian version of brush
ol ragiol and it's it is beef or theal top
(03:38):
round that's boiled and diced up eggs and parmesan bread.
Combs and parsley, and then it gets rolled up and
my grandmother would always stick it with toothpicks and he
brings it in the red bravy and serve it with
angel hair pastas. So it's like a very traditional New
Ormans dish. But it's funny because that's on my mom's
cyber they're all Irish French, so not Italian, but that's
(04:01):
that's who would make it when I was growing up.
Whereas on my on my dad's side, for the Sicilians,
you know, we we did the pasta and coshata, which
is which we do every Christmas, and that's layers of
of egg plant fried in the cast iron pan with musta,
chili pasta, pork gravy and then English peas. Then you
(04:23):
put layers of patrick Gavallo cheese and parmesan. You bake
it in the oven. Uh and you say it was
any sausage. So those are two of the two of
the big ones that my family always did.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Yeah, making me hungry, I know what, you know. I
take a lot of our friends, particularly overseas Italy, they
don't realize a strong Italian connection. Here in New Orleans.
There's some amazing uh, heritage and restaurant, particularly in the
Sicilian aspect of it.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
The French Quarter used to be called a little Palermo
for a long time. The majority of the pasta, of
the dried and package pastas in America were made in
the French Quarter. I think that was probably what early
nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 5 (05:06):
Yeah, absolutely pretty strong connection. So Michael, you owned three restaurants.
What was your initial impetus to get into food as
a career. What was that turning point for you?
Speaker 4 (05:20):
You know, I'm one of the lucky ones where I
always knew what I wanted to do. There's actually a
and I can't find it. There was a there was
a book report that I wrote in grammar school and
then I had to do a little autobiography on the
front of it. And literally I found that when I
was cleaning up my mom's house after Katrina, and it
(05:42):
said that my name is Michael Gilada and one day
I want to own restaurants. So apparently it's what I
always wanted to do. So I went like directly to
culinary school out of high school and immediately started working
in restaurants and worked for some really great chefs. So
I just it's always been what I wanted to do. Ever,
I never would I never even thought about doing anything else.
(06:02):
There was a short time where I thought about leaving
the restaurant industry when I was still in culinary school
and going into like food science. But I just love
restaurants and cooking and the adrenaline rush too much.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Now you graduated the Chef John False Institute Culinary Institute,
and you were part of the opening team in August.
That must have been incredible experience.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
It was wild, I so I think, I, yeah, that
was a wild time. The cool thing is that I
was there when we when we really started winning all
the awards, you know, I remember it was God, I think.
I mean they'd actually been open for about like three
(06:43):
or four months when I got there, But I still
consider that the opening team because it was still like
a lot of the opening team was there. And the
crazy thing was just like how many cooks were trying
to get in the door to work there at the time.
So I think I applied like ten times.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
I did.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
I They maybe do two stages, so you know, if
you know what stages are is where they have you
come in and try out. They made me to do too,
like ten hour stages before they would give me a job,
and I was so nervous and it's just crazy how
I went from being you know, the terrified new guy,
like literally fearing for my job every day and then
(07:19):
being the chef togazine for seven years.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
So wow, So you were there during you know, I
mean we probably dining there when you were the chef
because this was pre Katrina, right or was it post Katrina?
Speaker 3 (07:32):
So both?
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Okay, Yeah, so we definitely you were definitely chef when
we were there because we were there a lot after
Katrina planning our wedding in New Orleans. So you took
a probably what I would consider a grand tour in
the chef world. To what you went did. You took
some time to go to Italy and travel talk to
(07:54):
us about that and how it has inspired you as
a chef and to what you bring to New Orleans.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
Well, that was you know, I had started in August
and then you know when John gave me the job,
like he's like, hey, you know what, you know, I'm offering
the job, and I'm like, okay, I'll take the job,
and I have one sipulation and I'm leaving in a year.
I already had this whole trip planned to go work
in Italy, and he was like, you know, absolutely, that's
exactly what you should do. So I left and I
(08:24):
went to a little school in the north in Castilioli Biosti,
which is outside of the town of Osti, which is
outside of the town of Torino, in Piamonte. And so
of course Piamonte is just all the vineyards and all
the ground up Banano cheese, and you know that part
was amazing. And I spent a few months there and
then they found me a job on the coast in Ligoria,
(08:45):
in a little town called Bordighera, and I got to
work for a chef named Marco Balo. And his family
is like a storied Italian restaurant family, Like his father
owns this famous restaurant in Sanmonemo, which is like one
town over. His sister owns another restaurant. I go over
in Ventimilio, which is the town on the other side,
and so it was this amazing The restaurant was on
(09:07):
the water, it had its own private beach that was
two thousand and three, and it was like three of
us in the kitchen and we would just do hundreds
of covers and it was just pasta baked fish octopus.
We only served. He had a friend who had a boat,
and the guy would go out and fish, and his
(09:29):
wife would deliver all the seafood every day. And the
most amazing thing is that she would deliver it on
the back of her vespa. And not only that, she
was always when I thought it was, she was always
dressed to the nines.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
She always had on.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
A full dress, makeup, hair, everything, and she would pull
up and have the seafood on her shoulder on a box,
and it was always just the most beautiful ostiche, which
are the lobsters, beautiful prawns. I mean, it was just amazing.
So that's all we did was serve seafood. There was
never any meat on the menu any Every once in
(10:03):
a while he would go drive over to Anti or
over to France, and we were only took twenty minutes
from France on the French border, so Budati Geta is
the second to last town, then to Milia is the
last town, and then you're in France along the water,
and so he might he would maybe drove to France
and get some flag around. We do some flagro auditions
but mainly it was just seafood and certain like during
(10:23):
the day it was just really simple pasa toss with seafood,
and then at night we would do chasing minis only
it was just like seven or eight course tasting menus.
But we never had a menu. He would just serve
whatever he felt like serving, and uh, that was an
amazing experience and we never.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Took that beautiful air. I've been to this area, I've
not been to that restaurant, but it is really one
of my favorite areas of Italy and.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Lagoria is so under rated.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
I mean just so nobody talks about that area, and
it's like, you know, it's the home of Testo, it's
the home of Facacia, it's the home of so many
famous Italian things, and it's the one that no one
ever talks about, and it's absolutely stunning.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Now you bring some of those flavors to Tana along
with Sicily, let's talk about how you came. So I
will talk about your two Asian fusion restaurants after this.
But you know, Tana is kind of a big direction,
in a new direction because Mofo and Maypop are Asian
fusion and the foods of Liguria and sicily play heavily
(11:29):
into the menu. Talk to us about that based on
your experience living and working and cooking in Italy.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
So like it's it's amazing because Ali, it's such a
long and twisted story, because I always wanted to do
Italian and Tana was always in our back pocket, but
we needed to find the right spot, in the right
because you know, Tana needed to be a grand restaurant,
So it was always the one we were sort of holding,
like I said, in our back pocket until we could
(11:58):
find the rights partner is in the right space, and
so you know, but Ligoria plays so heavily into the menu.
But the fried calamari act, which everyone I'm not going
to I was fought on the on the calamaria affter
because it's not the traditional New Orleans calamaria, which is
like big thick rings fried kind of heavy with them,
with the with the marin air saucer dipping it in
(12:20):
like it's the very New Orleans I think, just a
very American Italian way to do it. But I was like, no,
I'm doing it the way we did the Ligoria, which
is shaved paper paper thin, and then you do it
with paper thin slices of zucchini and you fry it
like a haystack and just hit it with with women's juice.
And it was just when we we were. It was
always one of the starters on our tasting menu at
(12:42):
the restaurant. June Ketto is the name of the restaurant.
It's not under the same chef anymore. I'm not even
sure if it's still there, but restaurant Dum Ketto, we
always did this this Calumbia app and I just loved
how light and just fresh it made the calamari taste,
and so I made sure that that was a part
of the menu, I mean obvious. And we've doctored up
a little bit. Instead of doing just straight lemon juice,
(13:02):
we do this really awesome uh myra lemon and orange
immigrants that we address it with, and then we also
finish it with our housemade pepera to and now and
in the beginning it was everyone kept asking for sides
the marin airsauce with it there and then, But the
more our regulars would taste it, They're like, you know what,
this is just a great dish. Now, you know, I'm
maybe sell Ton like just a ludicrous amount of cala
(13:23):
mario at the restaurant. So that's a big one that
I'm so happy. Uh really took off on the menu.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
And we had it was delicious.
Speaker 5 (13:34):
It was delicious and as our as our really every
dish we had while we were there. We there once
so far and obviously want to come back. But you
have a lot of great things on the menu, some
beautiful pastas.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
The pasta I really loved, because you know, the pastas
I want to talk about because there are traditional pastas
here in the world. There are a lot of traditional
Italian restaurants, but you take it to as you said,
it's elevated. I have the Gulf shrimp pacerri with pistachio
which is a Sicilian nod and tomato cream. It was fabulous.
(14:07):
And I think, David, did you have the radiatory with
strachi and the Chilabrian chili christ I.
Speaker 5 (14:13):
Had the blue creba think fusili, which is fine.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (14:20):
I never wanted that dish to be empty, you.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Know, And I took that one off the menu and
it just caused an uproar. Uh, you can't do that,
I know.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
I mean, that's and that's that's the problem is like
you know, and this is the problem I followed all
my restaurants. It's like, I want to have a restaurant
where you're gonna keep seeing new things when you come
in through the door, and and and it might come back,
and it might come back on different guys, you know,
and you know, and that's the thing is. And now,
like switting pastas are a big thing in New Orleans.
(14:48):
But like I was a revelation to me when I
went to Ligoria and swimming pasta and swing you know,
the swinning prisotto's like those things you know, you never
saw in New Orleans and so and it's funny because
I put it on the menu at Tina, and still
there's a lot of people in that area that are
just like, I didn't know you could make spinning pasta.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
And you're like, absolutely, but that this is, you.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
Know, definitely one that I have done versions of at
the original Tuna, which is a little pop up on
two Lane Avenue, and then uh, and then I do
it again then at Maypop. Like I love that combination
of flavors, the crab meat, the spinning pasta. But then
I always add the New Orleans saw hot sausage which
just adds a whole other level of flavor. And it's
(15:30):
one that anyone who grew up in New Orleans because
we just crumble patents Hot sausage into it, which is
like the hot sausage patty that you get it every
ploboy shop and that like my mom used to keep
frozen packs of in there in the freezer from when
I was hungry, you know, growing up, I can always
pull out a patty of Pattens hot sausage and make
myself the sandwich. So it's like it's nostalgic. So now
on Winians eating, they're like, there's something in here that's
(15:51):
that I recognize. You're like, yeah, it's the Patent's hot
sausage paired with crab meat, you know, and then we're
just tossing it with all that butter in the in
the pasta.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
It's absolutely in amaze.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
What's nice that there's there's distinctly with the dishes a
Louisiana aspect, whether it's a Louisiana crawfish with potato and yoki,
the Gulf shrimp of carriers I mentioned, you mentioned the sausage,
which we're gonna have to go pick some up and
that's just the pastas I mean, we we took a
(16:22):
lot home. I will say the portions are generous, which
we are grateful for because everyone's you know, trying to
get the most out of their dining experience right now.
And we also just want our listeners to know that Tana,
which is located in a beautiful area called METAe, is
open for lunch and dinner and cocktails. And there's parking,
(16:42):
which we like because that's kind of a challenge here
when you live in New Orleans. So I do want
to mention what we had for our appetizers, because we
find whenever we dine out anywhere, particularly fine you're dining,
the appetizers are always the stars in your case. Everything start.
We had the Caulu mari and I had the savory
(17:06):
zeppee with Cajun caviar. It's like a fried bosh. Now
we would call that a giant hush puppy in the
Southern with herbed lardo butter. And they were just like giant.
They were bigger than golf balls, they were very and
smaller than tennis ball, but they were delicious. We were
dying to try, but we just couldn't. You know, our
(17:27):
eyes were bigger than our stomach. The barbecued lobster because
it's really hard to get lobster in New Orleans, and
you do it with Creole Sicilian barbecue, which sounded very interesting.
I'll see as your menu because we know that some
of these dishes are seasonal but based on what's available.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
So we just changed thirty percent of the menu in
the last two weeks. So the lobster is off, mainly
just because lopsters kind of not in season at the moment.
I was kind of forcing that one for a little while,
so that one came off. And now we've just been
on a really awesome octopus dish, so we did it.
We now have an octopus appetiser with with resulta Chrispi
(18:07):
Resota Metro or we make the resulta and then we
fry it in a cast iron pan A get it
really crispy, and we put that the octopus over that
and we top it with smoked tomato and bone marrow.
So that's that's the new octopus dish that just replaced
the lobster we took. We we just put a new
Land dish on. I love really playing with the Italian cuisine.
The sweet and the salty, or the sweet and the sour.
(18:29):
So like we're doing a slow braised lamb shrank now,
and that's getting top. I make a marm latta. So
it's it's citrus marmalade with roasted donalic and olives. And
so it's that play of the of the briny and
the sweet and a little bit of spice. We had
some chili to it and you put that over that
slow braised lamb shank and just those flavors, and I
(18:52):
braise the lamb shank like you would do in Ligoria
or Provence. There's a lot of crossover between the Gloria
and Promonce. Yeah, And like I use Tadjiaska olives, and
Tadjiaska olives are basically nisois olives just they're done, they're
just grind differently, So I use the Tadjaska olves. And
(19:12):
so just like I don't know, there's flavors with the lamb,
the olives and the roasted garlic is just so reminiscent
of the things that I that I.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Was trained in.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
But then I make up on my own because I
fold it all into that marmalade. So you have this
these crazy flavors going on, and that's a lot of
that I learned, you know, doing mofo and maypop, because
you know, the cornerstone of Southeast Asian cooking is hot, sour, selty, sweet,
and so I bring a lot of that now to
the dishes a tana and it just people you're just like,
oh my god, because it's hitting you all over your
(19:42):
palate and it makes you I'm a huge fan of
eating through your dishes. So whenever I come up with
dishes with my chipagaizines, we're not allow of hood on
the mediu until we sit there and eat the entire dish,
and they're like, they're like, oh my god, why do
we eat the entire thing? I'm like, because if it's
if the proportions are wrong, if you put too much
of one thing, then the this is left with too
much of one thing, and then they get bored with
the dish. It has to sort of all finish at
(20:04):
the same time. And I love dishes that sort of
change as you eat through them to keep the guest interested,
because if you know, you say I talk about the portions,
and I almost I fight at my mind with the
portions because sometimes the portions are too big, Like we
had a giant pork chop on them in you and
I took it off because the portion was so big
that when the guest gets bored of eating, then they
(20:25):
leave with kind of a bored remembrance of the restaurant.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
Right if it's like these massive, massive portions.
Speaker 4 (20:32):
And so I try to make sure that everything on
the plate is in balance so that you know, I mean, obviously,
if they just get border too much food, that's one thing.
But sometimes there's just like this giant, massive amount of food,
the guess just kind of gets bored with the experience.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
I think it's just be like to order a lot.
You know, it never goes out of season. Guys, Michael
and David. Two things. Your giant meatballs, which we had
a meatball, and you do a poster and you do
apasta cart similar to what we've seen in the Venice
with the giant round of parmesan over giano and and
then the tag the Itelli made it inside. We did
not have that, but it was wheeling around and we
(21:06):
were salivating, but you know, we couldn't order any more food.
Speaker 5 (21:10):
I love I love how we put on the on
the menu in print. We're not quite sure when the
pasta card is going to show up if you order it,
but it will get to you.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yeah, that must be incredibly popular.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Well that's the that's the whole issues.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
People would order that as their entree and so and
then so like we're sitting there waiting, and then like
we tell them because again we even tell the guests
it's like, hey, we cannot ensure when it's going to
get there. We say, it's like, you have to think
about it. And as like the Oyster Struckers in New Orleans,
if you order oysters, you don't know whomen and your meal.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
They're going to get there. They're going to come at.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
Any point they want to, because the Oyster Strucker has
a long rune of tickets and you know, so it's
not going to come with your ass with your entrees.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
It just comes when it comes.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
And we try to tell guests that and because the
problem is all the rest of the foodle hit the
table and everyone will wait and their food will get cold,
and the right guys, we cannot, like there's so many
people trying to get that pasta card, we cannot ensure
you that it will arrive when you'd like, because on
some nights, on a busy night, we'll sell forty five
of those pasta cards and each one takes five minutes,
(22:09):
you know, So it's it's almost yeah, So it's it's
it's not always going to get there when you want to,
but it is a great experience. Lucky that we have these.
We have three cooks who are because it's it's very
hard to find a cook that also likes to talk
to people. That are two things that really don't go together,
because look's like to be in the kitchen. And there's
been a few nights where I made some of my
some of my cooks is like our two people that
(22:30):
are trained to do the pasta card, one of them,
you know, couldn't be there. So I made one of
my back house cooks go out there and they're like,
I'll do this for you this once, but I'd never
want to go out and do this again because I
do not feel comfortable talking to the tables and you're like,
I understand. So I've been very lucky that we found
a few people who are about going to the table,
putting on the full production. They talked about the history
(22:51):
of this, they talked about the fact that we actually
use ran up and Dono's hit a parmes on and
so you know, and they talked them through the whole
process and it's a really an amazing experience and people
love it.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
It's called tagnate montecata forma the Grana padanna. Uh. And
why do you choose grown up padonna? Just out of curiosity?
Speaker 4 (23:12):
So because I trained in Fiamante and Grana padana is
produced in the Po River Valley, which is right by
where I was. So we spent time like going and
touring and like everywhere we always had grown up donna cheese.
And I also got to go and tour uh some
grana panano, you know aging, uh, manufacturing, So we got
to go watch the whole process and go into the
(23:33):
age of the giant aging warehouses that are massive and
snow like nothing you've ever smelled in your life before
in your life. And I just it's a it's a
much more powerful cheese, I find, you know, it's a
little more aggressive than parmesan.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Well I just want to point that out because I
said parmesan, but it's granda pandanna and they're very different,
very different. We can't wait to come back and try
that dish.
Speaker 5 (23:53):
You know, I want to go back to the octopus
that you said that you put on the menu. We
actually were there, I think the first you had it
on the menu, or maybe the second, and the service said,
this just went on the menu and we hope you
like it. And it was absolutely delicious. Oh yeah, I
did order it. It was the most tender, beautiful piece
of octopus I've had in a long time. And I've
been to you know, islands in the Mediterranean to.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Have it fresh, etc.
Speaker 5 (24:18):
It was just delicious. And I really didn't I didn't
want that dish to end either, Melanie, to be honest
with you.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
So good we didn't want the evening. Yeah, and it
really was an incredible experience, and you know, David reconnected
with an old friend and the wine business.
Speaker 5 (24:34):
It was interesting to walk in the door and see
my old friend Steve Russet, who's your wine director, who
I've known for many, many years when he was the
wine director for emerald for a long time, Emeralds over
on Chopatula Street, and he and it was like a
family reunion when I walked in the door and saw
him there. We hadn't seen each other in years and
(24:56):
it was just great to reconnect with him. And he's
put together a great wine list for you as well.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Absolutely a challenge in New Orleans they find a really
great wine list, it is.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
And I mean, obviously he's the master, you know, he's
he's done so many great wine lists in the city
and so we're very lucky to have him and and
to watch him work.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
I mean, his palate, his palate is just unmatched.
Speaker 4 (25:19):
And and then the watch the way he educates our staff,
you know, he does he does wine classes every week,
and uh, it's he's such an asset and his excitement
just to keep to to you know, to double click
down on each thing and really find out, you know,
to really find those great producers and make sure we
(25:40):
have them on the list. I mean, it really is.
We're very lucky.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Yeah, and it shows, and and that's it's it really
really shows. Let's talk about your partner in the business.
Let's talk about your team of partners and give them
a shout out as well, and let's do a touch
also on your other two restaurants so that we make
sure we give them some love.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
Mm hmm. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
So so I have one like my business partner is
Jeffrey Body. So he and I have all three restaurants
like we run. We we run the three and then
so we are the managing partners of Tana and then
we have two of well we have three other business
partners in Tana.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
So you know, we have Christopher Keane who he has.
Speaker 4 (26:25):
U Rivershak, which is kind of an old school in
New Orleans restaurant. Well he just opened the new ones,
so he has two River Shacks now, and then you
know we have and then we have Gabe Corgioni and
who has the Fat Post pizza brand. Uh and but
this is his sort of first Forrame the fine dining.
(26:46):
And then we have John Georges, who is you know
of of gallus Wise fame and so but if the
the great part is is they're they're they're very hands off,
you know, and they just want you know, they come
through and they enjoy what we're doing. And and you
know the main thing is that they just wanted to
(27:07):
have this amazing restaurant and and and they originally were
just going to bring us on to consult. And the
more we looked at it, like hey, you know, we
can we can make this a really grand restaurant, and
so then we decided to all become partners and and
it is just god is we found a really great
interior designer and she put so much effort into it
(27:27):
and was just such a force behind making sure everything
looked just just the right way. And and then we
just assembled a really really great team.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
You know.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
We we brought on Steve, and we we brought on
a lot of you know, our bar manager was with
us years ago at August, and our AGM the same thing,
started with me as a food runner at August and
worked his way up to management in the Best Group
and then in the Link group. You know, he was
most recently the AGM at Koshon and so like we
just and then our general manager has been you know,
we he came to us from a Gulf of Garskia
(27:58):
who's a good friend and Golfha reached out to me,
was like, you need to bring this guy on, like
he's he's a he's a rock star, and he is.
And so you know, I just find we've we've assembled
this great team. You know, we're eight months in and
and I feel like we're just really getting started. Like
there's so many more like that this restaurant is just
going to keep growing and evolving as the staff as
we develop this culture, because it takes time to develop
(28:20):
a culture. I always say it takes a it takes
a year to open a restaurant. It really does. You're
working out so many kinks in the first year and
really developing a culture that when a new person comes in,
they see how everyone works and they immediately either rise
to that level or they or they leave.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
I want to, you know, let's give a shout out
to the designer because it is quite beautiful. Particularly those
lanterns in the center of the lantern life.
Speaker 4 (28:46):
Are Breuner is her name, and she has a company
called Distressed Rentals and so her ma. She has this
huge facility out in Elmwood, and she has two master
carpenters on staff and each team. And so what they
do is they design like custom custom furniture and bars
(29:06):
for like events, so like they kind of have like
base furniture and then the people will have if if
someone's throwing a particular event, like they will change the
upholstery on it and change the way it looks and
the way it's set up for it. Like for literally
like something that might last two or three days and
then it's only for that event and then it gets
like broken down and used for and change into something
for another event. Like it's crazy what she does.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
And you know her team built a lot of that furniture. Uh,
custom built the furniture, custom built, the lays like it's
it really is unreal what she does.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
It's she'd she'd be there till she'd be there.
Speaker 4 (29:44):
She wouldn't show up to like like just so she
get working. You'd wait for the construction guys were done,
and she like up, she'd work. She'd walk into like
eight pm and sit there untill like one in the morning,
just working on stuff while that while that restaurant was
being built, she was there all the time.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
My impression when I walked in, walked around and looked
at the detail, because the bar area is quite elegant too.
The restaurant has that elegance that you would find in
New York or Los Angeles. There's space between the tables.
The cocktail lounge area is like very it's not cozy,
but it's cozy. And this is the way you have
(30:18):
the round boothe you know, the bankheads and the bar
and in the back, there's an homage to the person
who inspired the name.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
Yes, my great grandmother. Yes, yes, the most Sicilian name.
Her name was Gaetana Giacona, and the Giaconas were pretty
you know, are well known in New Orleans as well. Actually,
all of the if you come from marnigrap foror the
Monigros cups, those are all all those Monigrath cups that
are thrown are all made by Giacona Plastics, which is
(30:50):
like a distant cousin of mine, and it's all from
the same Giacona family that came Uh.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
It's funny.
Speaker 4 (30:56):
My great grandmother was actually born in New Orleans, then
brought back and raised in Kalermo, and then brought back
and met her husband. And you know, their house used
to be one like two houses off the corner of
the Esplanad rampart and so that's literally where my dad
spent a lot of his time being raised. And I
(31:18):
actually used to go there a lot when I was little. Yeah,
So it's just a crazy I just love the New
Orleans stories just because, you know, so many. Just being
at Port City, there's just so many. It's almost like
New York. There's so many stories that these people sort
of coming in and out, and I just loved the
(31:38):
fact that she was actually born here but raised in
Palermo and came back. She barely smoke any English. She
almost killed me like three times when I was little
because she'd always give me hard candies when I was
like three years old.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
So anyway, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
It's a lovely plaque in the back, and we encourage
anyone who visits to walk that bar.
Speaker 5 (31:55):
It's a beautiful restaurant and it's got some great food too.
You know, let's talk about your other two restaurants, and
you know interesting, we keep talking about Italian food. We've
been talking about that for half an hour now. But
your first restaurant, Mofo, is Asian, as is your other restaurant, Maypop.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
So so you.
Speaker 5 (32:14):
Actually so you actually you grew up Italian and then
you walked away from it to open a restaurant. I
think that's pretty interesting. Tell us about MOFO and how
it got started.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
It's absolute lenacy, is what it is. And I want
to be as honest about it as I can.
Speaker 4 (32:28):
Now.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
You know, I was in a situation.
Speaker 4 (32:32):
Where I really, I really wanted to get out and
start my own thing, and and I was trying to
find investors to honestly do to do tannel and it's
we never knew. It's hard to see where you're at
when you're in it. And so I've been the Shephizine
in August for seven years. I really wanted to get
(32:53):
out of there. You know, there was just a lot,
it was just getting very hot. It was a very
pressure cooker situation. And to take to become the chef
and like like do it plan and buy it from
him and I'm like.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
No, man, this is not what I want to do.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
And one of our captains was a guy named Jeffrey
Bibby and I know him since high school. And he's like, hey,
I think and and because i'd kind of on the
back end, been going out and trying to find them
open my own restaurant. And it was crazy, and I
was trying to open Italian restaurants. I just skept getting
a whole lot of news and I was like, okay,
well this is you know, this is not easy. And
(33:35):
uh He's like, hey, I think I can get us
some funding. He's like, but let's just like go open
something small and simple first. And then you know, at
that time, I'd been getting so many nos and I
was like, Okay, well I guess that this is probably
the way to do it. I'll just go do this
a little restaurant. And he's like, yeah, we're just going
to open Like He's like, let's just do like a
little casual spot. And we decided on Phu because there
(33:57):
was no Fu in the area in Mid City where
we ended up opening Mofo. And we all would go
and eat be in the Eastwood on our days off,
like that was all of our favorite cuisine, like all
the all the chefs and bartenders and servers, we would
all go eat V and MS on our day off
because otherwise it was just the New Orleans heavy New
Orleans suit, because no one's food can be very rich
and very heavy. And Vidamea Street was bright and refreshing,
(34:20):
and so that is what we would do in our
ass like we're going to open a restaurant for our
industry friends in mid City because back then all the
industry people lived in Mid City and so this was
the move and you know a lot of at that time,
a lot of fine dining chefs were leaving and going
and opening more casual restaurants. I think was that was
sort of the way the pendulum was swinging at the time.
(34:40):
But the crazy part was we wanted to go open
it and we ended up on all these national most
anticipated lists. We're like, oh my god, and because it
was just going to be a simple, little like Fuzs
Shop and I'm like, okay, well, we need to re
engineer this now and make it something bigger.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
And we did.
Speaker 4 (34:57):
And it was this crazy fusion of New Orleans and Vietnam.
And I mean the opening menu had whole fry fish
on it. I think we had we had Crispy Krispy
rice cakes with Oonie on it. I mean like we
were doing. We had a home grilled pig's feet in
in crab broth with the crab meat in myreland and
salad on top. Like it was this wild menu. And
(35:21):
it was crazy because in the by the second year
we were opened, we were, you know, we were on
phone Apps top fifty. We were I was a food
and Wine best new.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
Chef I was. It was.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
It was New Orleans Magazine's mesty restaurant. It was New
Orleans Magazine's restaurant of the Year. I mean, this little
flash shop in vid City that looks like a bar
on the inside was winning all these national awards. But
it also taught me like I really did love that.
So it was funny because one of my own servers
(35:54):
sent me some of the old lunch menues in August,
because originally I was only a really a lot to
put my dishes on the lunchmnue at August. By the
time I left a lot of them, maybe it was
mine and all those old lunchmen he's had a ton
of like Vietnamese and ty food on it because I
just love I've always loved those flavors. And when I
was traveling through Europe, you know, I lived in Germany
(36:15):
for a year and a half and if I wanted,
the closest thing I could get to on was Typhoon.
And I think because we take the same ethos in
New Orleans be where something was very balanced with the
hot sour. It's like a curry to me, yel it
has because you know, instead of using you know, here
we use the trinity and you know, saus and we
(36:37):
had lemon and then so there's those same balance as
a hot pour salty eat in New.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
Orleans, there is in Southeast Asia.
Speaker 4 (36:43):
So I've always loved that and I was able to
sort of take that and run with it. And that
became sort of the ethos for for MOFO, which was,
you know, what would a second or third generation Vietnamese
American cook for the house US from Lafayette, Right, So
like they would make it, they would make an a
two fade, but instead of using the traditional trinity, they
(37:05):
would add lemon grass, they would add lime leaf. They
would instead of using butter and cream, they would use
coconut note. But you would still use crawfish, but still
use you still rice, and so many of these things
are so so similar that if you just tweak a
couple of the items, it becomes a whole new cuisine
that both cultures can recognize. That came the whole and
(37:29):
it just resonated. People just loved it. And that's and
then so we had the chance to open Maypop. And
with Maypop, we were like, oh, let's just go, Let's
do the Italian restaurant. I'm like, I don't know, man,
now I'm in love with this usion thing. What if
we take Italian and mix it with all the flavors
like New Orleans Italian mix it with all the flavors
(37:50):
of the Mekong delta, and that's what Maypop is. Honestly,
like it's if Asta is tossed with handground curries with
Louisiana seafood. But it was funny because Maypop really never
had the chance to get there. I mean it opened
in twenty seventeen. By twenty nineteen, I mean we were
by two thousand and nine on you know, on Persons
(38:13):
Top ten, we were on we were all on Condonast
Top twenty for New Orleans.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
I mean like it had finally made it. In twenty nineteen.
Speaker 4 (38:22):
We were busy every day and then the pandemic camps
and so it kind of took the wind down of
apop sales and then so since then, I mean we
were just like if I'm still I love the food
we do there. I love the animation of it. On
the Complements is one of my line coaches, so it'd
worked all over the country. He's like, man, like, y'all
are creating here, which I was, which to me was
(38:44):
a huge compliment. I was like, yeah, we really are.
I mean, just it's so much fun. The things that
we're doing were ever were so invested the cuisine and
then it just got the like I said, the wind
knock out of it. And it's you know, it's kind
of started along for the last two or three years
and now only have a new shift togazine and he
is putting so much new uh a new jam before
(39:09):
pandemic and you know, now they're shifting almost entirely tasting
menus and and it's really coming along now, uh, coming
back to life that we're excited about.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
What's interesting. So Mofo and may Pop are very different
in their styles. Mofo for us is our casual place.
We love to go there for lunch or after. We
went after jazz Fest quite a bit because it was
like on the route home and we could just pull
at the bar and even take out. Maypop is a
lot more. There's another level of sophistication in it. And
(39:43):
we had a friend lives in that area and we
had a really wonderful dinner. We need to do a revisit.
You mentioned tasting menus, and I think this is an
interesting topic because I think a number of restaurants around
the country are moving to that. There was a movement
away from tasting menus for a while and now there
seems to be a movement back, and I think it's
because of the pandemic. I'd like you to talk about
(40:06):
the bit. You know, we're lucky in New Orleans in
the month of August, they do these, They do casing
menus anytime they want to bring in more customers. And
we've been taking advantage of the short culinary menus. But
the chasing menu is something that it can be divisive
with people. What do you think is why do you
think that it is a good decision?
Speaker 4 (40:25):
Well, so host pandemic that the new world we're living
in is now is the supreme Batts labor right, So
cooks are making thirty percent more than they were before pandemic,
and everyone should make a Liverpool wage before pandemic, not
(40:47):
a little wait, they just work. So now you know
books are making They were eighteen and twenty dollars an
hour across the anyone I know that I played our restaurants.
Everyone's making between eighteen and twenty two dollars hour. And
that changes the dynamic of how you can do it.
And it's like, you know, so I go to my
to my managers and I'm like, guys, this is you
(41:07):
know the numbers of the numbers, you can't fake them.
So if we all want to make more than we
have to do it with less or we have to
charge way more. And so you know, also we've engineered
and used to just do it with because most we
can't go up on its price. Like MOFO is a
neighborhood joint. You know it has to you know that
(41:30):
it may Pop. I mean, downtown New Orleans is not great.
You know the pandemic. No one Now everyone works half
from home. So it used to be you had a
huge lunch ground. You know, every day at Maypop we
would do sixty to eighty covers for lunch. Now we're
not even open for lunch because no one is. There
(41:50):
are no everyone I'm talking to that you work downtown.
Now their companies might make them come in two days
a week, right, so maybe there's maybe two days that
they have to come in to do to do work.
Speaker 3 (42:01):
So that's viable.
Speaker 4 (42:03):
So now maybe not solely dependent on tourism. And the
switch to the tasing menu is like, okay, well, if
someone's here traveling for tourism or traveling for a convention,
then they're going to be willing to spend a little more,
and so let's just see how far, you know, what
(42:23):
are people really open to? And so we put the
tasting menu on it, and we don't force tasing you.
It's an option. But we have found that now a
center of our covers get to us, and it has
raised our guests caverage by forty dollars. And so now
we're doing a third of the covers we used to,
but we've been able to raise our guestrick canverage to
(42:45):
where the least we're able to make enough revenue to
be there until Downtown either shifts or comes back, or
or we move the restaurant or something along those lines.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
Well, it's interesting. I would think that tasting menu also
can deal with what must be the incredible amount of
food waste.
Speaker 4 (43:07):
But I mean that so we kind of it's tricky
for us because yeah, if you go full tasting menu,
that helps. And it's even better if you can have
a full tasting menu in a restaurant where you know
the number of covers coming in each night, like for real,
like for us, we still have the problem that god
we might have and this is this is the true
severity and scariness of Downtown. The walls right now, especially
(43:27):
in the summer, we might have five people in the books,
but then we'll do forty five, like we'll have that
many walkins, which is just insanity, Uh, to have that
many walkins and then them all do tasting mans. So
it makes it really hard for staffing. It makes it
really hard for labor costs these days because people of
ease of reservations, people honestly don't use them as much.
(43:51):
Like they'll just walk in and they're like, oh, you know,
we didn't know y'all were here, and oh you're the
tasting menu and somebody you'll sell twenty tasting menus when
you had nothing on the books that night, and it's
you know, it can be very very stressful.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
So you're saying that you prefer reservations versus walkins.
Speaker 4 (44:07):
I mean, I'll take I'll take whenever you give me.
But if for tasting menus, because we have it. If
you go to open table, there's both options. You can
just get a regular reservation or you can get a
tasting menu reservation. Then we can kind of know how
many resume tasting menus are coming in. But still we
haven't been we I don't think we have not been
a tasing menu restaurant long enough for people to trust us,
(44:30):
and they just make the regular reservation because they're not sure.
But the tasting menu, then they come in, they read it,
they're like, oh, this looks great, and then they do
the tasting menu, and then we end up selling how
much tasting menus.
Speaker 2 (44:39):
It's interesting. I mean, we're guilty of the walk in
a lot. Sometimes we just don't know. And New Orleans
is fickle because you never know what the rain, et cetera.
You know, one bad rainstorm and boom. But here's the
good news. Here's the good news. New Orleans is getting
the Super Bowl in twenty twenty five, and of course
there's the Taylor Swift thing coming up in the fall
of twenty twenty four. So I think that we think,
(45:00):
you know, downtown New Orleans and mid city is going
to get a boost with that, and there's some interesting
hotels that have opened. So I think that that's a
really great thing because a lot of people come and
they actually don't know where to go right close to
the super Dome and close to entertainment, So that's an
advantage that I think is going to help all the
restaurants in that location.
Speaker 4 (45:20):
Yeah, we're already we're already almost booked for the weekend
of Sailor Swifts and that's a month and a half out.
Speaker 3 (45:26):
That's great.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
Wow, that's so amazing. That's exciting. You know, we you know,
we need more of that in New Orleans and more
awareness of what's around it. We get that question all
the time from people who say, what's around this area?
So that proximity factor is really really great. So, you know,
you've got three restaurants, you're quite busy. Where do you
(45:51):
go on your Where do you go when you kick back?
We always like to ask chefs and restaurant owners, where's
that little place you go where you can be anonymous
and have a good meal. Uh?
Speaker 3 (46:05):
Where do I go? I don't know, I don't know. Anonymous?
Speaker 2 (46:10):
Is hard tack the anonymous out of it because we
asked this to Isaac Tubes and I don't think he's
anonymous anywhere, but he go with this neighborhood place, and
then we like, I tailed over there.
Speaker 4 (46:22):
No, I mean, you know, like I always I haven't
been there forever, but I U still I used to
love going to Liaises, I up going to Theses on
the end with the big frosty because they do the
friend schileta. I love a friend. So here's big popular
(46:42):
opinion is that I don't like muffle outas like the
bread of the muffla is on. I find it sinks
up all the oil and it's kind of greasy. But
I love a French schiletta, which is a which is
the mufflot on French bread that they toast and get
really get it really warm, melt the cheese, getting a
really crunchy because I'm a big texture person, so like
a French chillletta to me is the best thing. And
(47:03):
uh lais is always the lases on. Bienville has the
French schiletta in the in the in the big icy
muggs of mirror and so. And they also do bushwhackers
if you want to get your you know, you just
want to get trashed. So that's a great one. And
if I'm and if I want to sneak away and
get a cocktail, I go to twelve mile in it
(47:23):
just because it's a dive bar with really good cocktails.
Speaker 5 (47:26):
Oh yeah, that we had Bull Newton on the show.
Speaker 3 (47:28):
He was great.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
He has Yeah, I think he's still there. We hadn't
have been there in a while, so.
Speaker 4 (47:36):
And I had to do a fundraiser together and it
was a talent show. Uh and it was at Saturn
Bar and that was a whole lot of fun.
Speaker 5 (47:45):
He's a great he's a great guy.
Speaker 3 (47:46):
We had him on.
Speaker 5 (47:47):
It was just after tails in the Cocktail. Yeah, quite
some time talk about New Orleans cocktails and the.
Speaker 2 (47:51):
Losers at the Trap and not Louses Midst, which is
actually near us. So I'm sure we'll high tail. We
like the high tail over to wherever people tell us
to go and check things out, because there's the city
has so much you could just you know, somebody actually commented,
do you just all you do is eat out? And
I kind of have my tail between my legs. No,
we eat home also, but there's just so there's just
(48:13):
so many amazing places to try and a lot of
them are hole in the walls that you are local
has to tell you about, right, absolutely.
Speaker 4 (48:23):
And it's hard because I also want to support, like,
you know, my friends who have new restaurants, because the
Lord knows if you have a new restaurant, you need
that support as well. Yeah, it's hard, and there's so
many restaurants in such a small area. People don't believe
me that, you know where a population of like three
hundred thousand with fifteen hundred restaurants. Yeah, it's it's you know,
it's absolutely insanity. We like there, like I don't know,
(48:44):
because I really love food.
Speaker 3 (48:45):
I'm not sure we.
Speaker 2 (48:47):
Love food too, And if I had my way, I
would eat out every night, and you know I am always.
Even yesterday when I was going to get a medical test,
I slipped into a place that a local friend told
me about that soon for local and really down, you know,
really and have my little half of a half of
a pull boy oister Bullow pull boy, just to say
(49:07):
I tried it, but it was like a little died
and it's like you find these places all around and
it's so much fun. But you know, on the flip side,
you know, Tana made us feel very grown up and
we got dressed up and you don't have to be
dressed up, you can, you know, but we we wanted
to be good when we went there because it's just
it's a beautiful one side.
Speaker 4 (49:28):
It really, I mean it's now at the point where
I can walk around the dining room and be like, man,
we created a really really amazing, cool viety restaurant that
you know that I never it's still it takes me
a back whole lot because you know, I'm always in
the nuts on the bolt side in the kitchen, you know,
grinding it out and just kind of walk around the
dining room and see where how far we've come just
(49:49):
in the in the eight months we've been opened. Is
it feels really good?
Speaker 2 (49:54):
Yeah, Well, it's nice to be able to kind of
dress up and go out in the in the city
where everyone's in shorts and flip flops and shifts all
the time just because of the hate. It's nice to
feel like you can go out and have an evening
or lunch out and have a great meal and feel
feel feel boddled.
Speaker 4 (50:10):
Yeah, and I love the lunch now. So we're only
doing lunch Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I think we're going to
move it to Thursday too, but like the Friday love
vibe is just it reminds me of you know, you know,
when you're in New York you can always go get
a reasonably priced well it's like a cheap way to
go experience a great restaurant, right, And it's like, you know,
whenever I'm in New York, I always like to pop
(50:31):
in and in between services at Marea and get the
bone Narrow Octopus Coasta. Like that's just one of my
that's just one of my go like whenever I'm in
New York, I just pop in because you can always
get it no matter what time of the day, and
and you know, and it's the same thing with where
you can you can pop in and have that experience,
you know, and it's a lighter area field than dinner.
And so that's I want to I want to have
(50:54):
that option at time because I love and the other Like,
you know, we only launch Lunch a month and a
half ago, but like two fridays ago, I mean I
think we did eighty covers and it was just that
same energy. It was just like everyone was having a
good time. The food's a lot lighter at lunch, and
and I love that energy of elegant but but light
(51:14):
that you that you only usually that I only ever
found it in New York restaurants at lunchtime.
Speaker 2 (51:20):
You know, sometimes you just want to pop in and
have that one dish and just make it a misty
glass of wine. I'm like that, well, you know, Mike,
We've really enjoyed talking to you. We've come to the end.
We have to wrap up, but we've been talking with
Michael Golotta. The three restaurants we're talking about are all
worthy of visiting and revisiting, Mofo, Maypop, and Tana Uh.
(51:41):
They just really show the diversity and deliciousness that New
Orleans has to offer and why we chose to settle here.
Thank you so much for joining us on the Connected Table.
Speaker 3 (51:51):
Oh it was a lot of fun. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (51:54):
And for all of you listening, come to New Orleans.
It's time for a visit and time for a revisit.
There's a lot going on and we want you always
to stay insatiably curious.
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