What we covered in this episode
- Chef Michael Gulotta explains the reasons why he shut down early March his restaurants in New Orleans at the start of the pandemic.
- He shares how different the impact of this pandemic is compared the situation caused by the hurricane Katrina back in 2005.
- Chef Michael Gulotta describes his different restaurant concepts: MOPHO, MAYPOP, Tana, and
- MOPHO is a restaurant that is a New Orleans neighborhood spot first, but inspired by Vietnamese cuisine.
- Chef Michael Gulotta grew up with a lot of Vietnamese friends and he loved the way their families took the hardy dishes of New Orleans and how they brighten them with, with all of ginger, lemon grass and lime leaves.
- He describes how the food at MOPHO evolved through the years. As they say, it is not a Vietnamese restaurant. They are a New Orleans restaurant inspired by Vietnamese cuisine.
- Our food is an evolution of a traditional cuisine. We're trying to evolve the traditional Vietnamese cuisine here in New Orleans.
- The cuisine at MAYPOP melds the Mekong Delta with the Mississippi Delta. So it pulls from all of my training, pasta making and charcuterie from Chef Michael Gulotta’s time in Northern Italy and in Germany, but then it blends in with all of the Mekong Delta.
- At MAYPOP there's Laotian cuisine, there's Thai cuisine, there's Vietnamese cuisine.
- Chef Michael Gulotta explains how the trip that he took with his Chef de Cuisine Paul Chell to Southeast Asia influenced some of the dishes at his restaurants.
- Early on in his career, he spent time in Northern Italy and in Germany. About the same time that he worked for Chef John Besh. Chef Michael Gulotta revisit his time spent in Europe and what he learned from it.
- He shares his time at restaurant August wit Chef John Besh.
- Series of rapid-fire questions.
- Link to the podcast episode on Apple Podcasts.
Links to other episodes in New Orleans.
Link to Chef Michael Gulotta's Asian Curry recipe.
Click on this link to download the 3 pagers with the recipe and additional information on how to add some Asian influence in your cooking.
-
- Chef Michael Gulotta and @flavorsunknown
-
- What a dish! @Maypop
-
- Tasting at Maypop in New Orleans
-
- Maypop in New Orleans
-
- chixwaffle by Chef Michael Gulotta
-
- Softshell Crab Over Coconut Sticky Rice
-
- Maypop Tom Yum by Chef Michael Gulotta
-
- Maypop tasting with Chef Michael Gulotta
Submitted questions from podcast listeners
How do you get inspired to cook?
I think there's so many facets. There's so many different ways for a dish to come about. I have never been able to settle on a single way because I try to keep things seasonal. Sometimes it's me sitting down just with whatever. My local farmers will send me their produce lists and I'll try to go through there and figure out what to do. But also sometimes I'll eat something at a friend's restaurant or out, travel and eat something. And I'm like, wow, this inspires me to do my own take on this. Sometimes it is a food memory. Like I'll remember something that I've had and I'm like, man, I really love this dish when I had it. I think we should do a play on that at the restaurant. But also a lot of that is tempered with what customers want. The customer has to crave what you're putting on the plate. The customer has to be excited about it. And so a lot of that comes into play too. Sometimes I based dishes off of what I think the customer wants. And then I add my inspiration to it. There's a whole lot of different ways to attack and they're not always the same. I want my team to have input. So a lot of times I put it up to the team, like, what are y'all interested in right now? What's, what's exciting to you. And then we would all collaborate.