Cutting-Edge Cuisine

Michael Voltaggio has spiky blonde hair and an armful of tattoos, both de rigueur components of biker chic. But a motorcycle isn’t the kind of hog that really gets his motor running. After all, how many Hells Angels sport tattoos of cutlery?

“I wanted it to look like something you picked up at a gift shop,” he says, pointing to an image of a spoon on his forearm.    

Voltaggio’s hog of choice might very well be a suckling pig, which he serves with pistachio beans, tiny onions, orange juice and coriander at The Langham, Huntington Hotel & Spa’s celebrated Dining Room. He became chef de cuisine there in July at the tender age of 30. Now 31, Voltaggio is also a contestant on the current season of Bravo’s hot reality show Top Chef: Las Vegas.

If it seems surprising that such a young chef would be running the kitchen of the only hotel-run restaurant in Los Angeles with a Michelin star, it shouldn’t — he’d already earned his own star for Charlie Palmer’s Dry Creek Kitchen in Healdsburg, California, in 2006. “People are definitely shocked when they meet me and realize that you’re 31 and you’ve done all this in your career,” he says. “But if you look at my length of time in the kitchen, I’ve been doing this for 15 years.”

Indeed, Denis Depoitre, The Langham’s executive chef, says he had known Voltaggio for years when he recruited him to replace the acclaimed Craig Strong in July, after Strong took a job at the Montage Laguna Beach. “We opened The Ritz-Carlton Bachelor Gulch in Colorado together [in 2002],” Depoitre says.

“He was a young chef at that time, but he was exciting and had great ideas.”

On the show, the rising young chef (who was still in the running at press time) is depicted as brilliant and imaginative (another contender likens him to Picasso), but his competitors also call him cocky and manipulative. The first time Voltaggio faces elimination after an electricity problem ruins his dish, he seems undeterred. “Babe Ruth struck out once or twice in his career and he left a legacy behind,” he tells the camera, “and I plan on doing the same thing.”

Even better would be beating his older brother, Brian, to the punch. Brian Voltaggio is  the chef-owner of Volt Restaurant in their hometown of Frederick, Maryland, and he’s also competing on this season of Top Chef. But that’s nothing new for the Voltaggio brothers — they’ve been taking each other’s measure all their lives.

In fact, Brian’s high school job in the kitchen of Frederick’s Holiday Inn — and his consequent stash of cash for clothes and cars — was what prompted Michael to start cooking. The day he turned 15, old enough to receive a work permit, he took an after-school job as a busboy; a cook’s gig quickly followed. After high school, Voltaggio scored a prestigious two-year apprenticeship at the five-diamond Greenbrier resort in West Virginia, where he earned a classic culinary education.

By 2000, he was working as an assistant chef at The Ritz-Carlton, Naples, in Florida. A year and a half later, he was running the kitchen of the hotel’s Grill Room. “Most of my employees were older than me,” he says. “I got the job on my skill set. I was 23, but I was cooking better than anybody else in the building.”

That was due in part to the mentoring of Arnaud Berthelier, a renowned chef in Naples who’d worked for Alain Ducasse in London, Paris and Monte Carlo. Berthelier was a proponent of harnessing the principles of food chemistry to create new tastes and textures. “He was using a lot of technology for that time, but what we’re doing today has evolved so much since then,” Voltaggio says. “I saw his food and I was like, I want to be like that guy. It was beautiful, it tasted good, it was executed perfectly, it excited me. It became the entertainment for the evening. I wanted it to be something more than cooking food for somebody who’s like, ‘I’ve got to eat real quick so I can get to the ballet.’ I want this to be the ballet.”

The months before Voltaggio’s arrival at The Langham in July boiled over with activity. In December, 2008, he helped Spanish chef José Andrés open The Bazaar at The SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills. The restaurant went on to earn a rare four-star rave from the Los Angeles Times; in March, it was named a finalist for the James Beard Foundation’s Best New Restaurant Award.

After filming ended for Top Chef, Voltaggio overhauled The Dining Room’s kitchen, taking out the grill and installing a $20,000 combi oven that steams, poaches, roasts and browns. He brought in food scales that measure to the tenth of a gram and hypodermic probes to take meat temperatures — all tools to create his innovative style of food: “I like to take familiar flavors and maybe present them in a way you haven’t had them before. Pastrami, rye, gruyère cheese, mustard greens — that all goes together. But then take that flavor profile and do it with pigeon.”

That’s currently one of the offerings at The Dining Room, which features a tasting menu of 20 dishes. Prices range from $79 for a four-course meal to $125 for a seven-course tasting selected by Voltaggio. Highlights include the velvety Wagyu Short Rib, with textures of broccoli, tamarind and baby turnip; the surprising Pacific Yellowtail, with soy-infused watermelon, sea sponge and smoked egg yolk; and the tender cloud of Foie Gras, served with an aerated brioche, Concord grape and salsify.

“I would rather guests come in and try different tastes than eat a 20-ounce steak and be on their way,” Voltaggio says. “I don’t just want to be that destination place, where people go once a year because it’s their anniversary. I want them to eat here throughout the year. They want this to be a restaurant for the community, not just a restaurant inside an old hotel that you have to get dressed up to go to.”

As part of The Dining Room’s repositioning, the hotel is giving the stuffy space a long-overdue facelift. The restaurant will close for renovations in January and reopen by mid-April with a new name. The new space, touted as a blend of contemporary and classic décor that won’t scare off the venue’s longtime patrons, is being designed by Atlanta-based restaurant architect Bill Johnson of Johnson Studio. One element will be a wine room showcasing tastings of wines from around the world.

Perhaps not surprisingly, during his off hours, the father of two daughters, ages 5 and 9, doesn’t cook. Voltaggio’s idea of a good time is visiting other restaurants, to see what else is out there on the culinary landscape.

“I’m very serious about what I do,” he says. “What does any artist get out of what they do? Hopefully, the fact that you can please other people. Cooking is about sharing, and for me, that’s probably the biggest thing about what I do — sharing a part of myself with everybody who comes into the restaurant.”

The Langham, Huntington Hotel & Spa is located at 1401 S. Oak Knoll Ave., Pasadena. The Dining Room’s hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Call (626) 585-6218 or visit thediningroom-langham.com.

Top Chef, Season 6, Episode 3, Elimination Challenge Winner
YIELD: 16 to 20 appetizers

INGREDIENTS
1 slab smoked bacon (about 3 pounds)
½ cup sesame oil
2 onions, sliced
2 carrots, diced
3 stalks celery, chopped
1½ gallons water
1 quart soy sauce
½ cup whole-grain mustard

¼ cup yellow mustard
¼ cup ginger powder
1 cup roasted peanuts, crushed
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
15 romaine hearts, stored in ice water
½ cup honey
¼ cup cornstarch mixed with 1 cup water
½ cup Indian mango chutney 

Instructions

1.    Score slab of bacon, creating cross-cut squares on the skin’s surface.
2.    Sear the bacon, scored side down, in sesame oil until brown. Flip over and add vegetables.
3.    Add water and half the ginger powder.
4.    Cover with foil and place in 275-degree oven for 2 hours.
5.    Meanwhile, mix soy sauce, mustards, honey, mango chutney, remaining ginger powder and ½ quart water in a         small pot. Bring to a simmer and reduce liquid for 20 minutes.
6.    Use cornstarch mixture to thicken glaze to desired consistency (you may not need all of it).
7.    Remove bacon from the braising liquid. Brush with glaze. Slice.

To Serve:
1.    Mix peanuts with some ginger powder and cayenne pepper to taste.
2.    Place a romaine heart on the plate and cover with pork belly slices.
3.    Spoon extra glaze over the pork.
4.    Sprinkle peanuts for garnish.
 

© 2009 Michael Voltaggio