Chef Michael Gulotta

Most chefs are loath to admit to having been picky eaters as children, but not Michael Gulotta. “I’d eat anything as long as I thought it was good,” said the native New Orleanian, whose early cooking forays were shaped by the Chinese explorations on public television’s Yan Can Cook and his fire chief stepdad’s macho cook-offs with coworkers. “It wasn’t like, ‘Ew, I don’t eat that!’ I’d say, ‘I don’t like this. This isn’t good.’” Alert to all food’s textures and sizzling interactions, he fell for the chemistry side of cooking.  “I always loved the alchemical aspect of turning simple ingredients into something totally different,” he added. 

Six years as chef de cuisine at Restaurant August goaded Gulotta to taking a path many chefs fear to tread: messing with New Orleans classics. But at late-night beacon MoPho and the CBD’s airy Maypop, which Gulotta opened in 2014 and 2016 respectively, the chef’s artful, precise approach traverses the surprisingly expansive common ground shared between Southeast Asia and Southeast Louisiana—French influence, swampy climate, and no room amid brawny garlic and peppers for nuanced flavors—to astounding success among the city’s infamously ritualistic dining population.

A perfect dish leaving the MoPho or Maypop kitchen will taste in equal parts hot, sour, salty, and sweet. “That’s the secret to Asian cooking,” said Gulotta. “It finishes clean, and you’re ready for the next bite.” His building blocks are the Creole basics (celery, onion, garlic, peppers) and traditional Southeast Asian underpinnings (lemongrass, ginger, garlic, galangal) which he melds together to create entrées like Roasted Lemongrass Chicken, where smoked dried shrimp maque choux, tamarind glaze, and a lemongrass chili vinaigrette deliver all the comfort of a classic, and leave the diner dazed but satisfied in a dreamscape. “It was like my mom’s roasted chicken,” you might murmur, “but it wasn’t.”

“That’s the secret to Asian cooking,” said Gulotta. “It finishes clean, and you’re ready for the next bite.”

Gulotta’s gift for reinterpretation isn’t contingent on lemongrass. For our August 19 Art of Food dinner, he’ll translate the works of three Louisiana artists into an edible experience at Ann Connelly Fine Art Gallery in Baton Rouge. The dramatic Gulf skies and humble sea creatures that populate Billy Solitario’s paintings inspired Gulotta to concoct a Chilled Blue Crab Salad with peaches, tomatoes, and coconut lime leaf clouds. (Solitario has a fondness for summer cumulonimbus clouds.) Baton Rouge artist Demond Matsuo creates collages of divine stags wreathed in flowers—so Gulotta is plating up a Double Smoked Bacon Larded Venison Tenderloin with venison neck jus, sweet corn grits, and collard green and cherry marmalade. And for Mia Kaplan, whose wanderings in Big Branch Marsh prompt a recreation of nature’s fragile textures in her multidimensional sculptures, the chef opts for his own foraged delicacy: Apricot & Chanterelle Gelato with oat and honey crumble and hibiscus.

[Meet the artists for Art of Food.]

There are pleasures at MoPho and Maypop reserved for serious epicureans with Gulotta’s culinary vocabulary, or diners who care to ask. “We’ve got a Vindaloo Crispy Chicken—it’s Nashville-style hot chicken with vindaloo curry. We fry it and toss it with housemade pickles made from watermelon rinds, and serve it over housemade mac and cheese. It sells insanely.” But even for less curious diners, these dishes still have appeal. “We make the bechamel with coconut milk, so it’s not as heavy. We make all the pasta in house and we make it with locally ground flours. Cool elements, but at the end of the day, someone’s just like ‘Ooh, mac and cheese and fried chicken.’”  

For more on the artists whose work Gulotta will interpret, click here. For tickets (they're going fast!), visit bontempstix.com. If we've sold out, stay tuned for our fall Supper Club series—tickets go on sale July 27.