Small Town Chefs 2022: Chefs Stephanie & Michael Paoletti

When we arrived at the “Dinner on the Lot” experience in downtown Ocean Springs, the Food, Booze & Hiccups chefs were emerging from the brewery across the street—wearing shorts, sandals, fresh tans, and big smiles; arms full of canned beer. Stephanie and Michael Paoletti met us on the grassy corner lot, where white string lights twinkled and charcoal was already burning. After greeting us like old friends showing up to a backyard barbecue, and introducing us to our equally-eager table mates, the irreverently-creative culinary team began to dish out the courses.

To start was a hearty duck and rabbit fat cornbread, griddled crisp and dusted with coriander sea salt and black pepper. It was served family-style in a rough hand-thrown bowl; Stephanie explained that it might have been made by local ceramicist Amber Jameson (it also could have been made by Jameson’s boyfriend Tyler). Next came an amuse-bouche that I can say in full sincerity was the freshest oyster I have had: it had been harvested locally via aquaculture the day prior. The Paolettis served it raw on the half shell with bright and spicy jezebel sauce, homemade lettuce oil, and a bright fuchsia begonia leaf from Ocean Springs’ Harbor Hill Farm.

“Being born and raised here, I grew up eating the big Gulf oysters. They were gritty two-to-three biters—I thought they were the best thing ever. Now I’ve had a chance to try oysters from all over the East Coast, West Coast and whatnot,” Michael explained. “Now we have these guys that are harvested right behind Deer Island with the West Coast-method, so they’re actually suspended—so you don’t get the grit, none of that stuff. But you still get the Gulf water, the salinity.”

This level of care in sourcing fresh, local ingredients—and even the locally-crafted dishware and napkin holders—is a consistent feature of the Paolettis’ culinary and personal ideology. Theirs is the only restaurant or caterer in Ocean Springs recognized by the Mississippi Gulf Coast National Heritage Outpost Program for their commitment to sustainability. “So that’s one big thing that we really are very mindful of is our imprint when we’re done,” Stephanie told me. 

Both chefs grew up in the South (her in Boca Raton, Florida, him in Ocean Springs) with Italian heritage, passionate about food from early ages and eager to experiment with different ingredients and flavors. “We don’t want to put ourselves in a box,” Michael said. “Like even though I’m Italian, I don’t want to cook pasta every day. That’s just boring …  We want to challenge people like a meal should. It should make you think. We also want to challenge people to step outside of their own box. Just because you grew up eating this way, doesn’t mean you have to eat this way the rest of your life. Like be adventurous and try shit, and have fun.”

“Adventurous” is a fitting word to describe the Paoloettis' culinary philosophy. Before our dinner Michael asked if we had any dietary restrictions, and I told him we’re very open-minded eaters. “Oh, we’re gonna test how open minded y’all are,” he’d replied in a way that seemed part challenge, part threat. On the night we visited, the couple’s combined culinary mastermind produced courses like a delicately-textured cured salmon with roe, fresh dill, crème fraîche, and salt-cured lemon; a country-style pork and duck liver paté that played on a bánh mì with hot sauce aioli, pickled vegetables like purple-topped turnips, micro collard greens, and Calabrian chili paste; a soft shell crab in a spicy marinade served half raw, half lightly-fried topped with tuxedo sesame seeds and fried garlic. And after all of that, there was still the Wagyu hanger steak from Louisiana’s Raines Farm, served boldly rare with Romanesco purée, Chantaney heirloom carrot roasted with sumac, and blood orange-infused olive oil, and with a quip from Michael: “I hate the term ‘chef,’ I prefer ‘butcher’.” 

Stephanie handles the desserts, an expertise she acquired by accident. She shared the story of how she was excelling in the savory realm of culinary school when at a competition with the American Culinary Federation, a pastry chef teammate cut her finger. “My coach was like, ‘Alright, you’re doing pastry today.’ I was very mad. And then I was very good at it. So, I just kind of stuck with it.” 

Her mastery on both sides of the kitchen were put on full display in the complex interactions of savory and sweet across the night’s menu. Our dessert, for instance, utilized the duck and rabbit fat cornbread we started the meal with as a base. The fatty, charred cornbread met the deep tang of a blueberry wine reduction sauce. Sweet notes from shaved vanilla bean and powdered sugar commingled with roasted turnips, which took on a buttery baked-apple quality. And a topping of intentionally-burnt cinnamon-nutmeg streusel gave a satisfying bitter-buttery-sweet crunch. 

Michael and Stephanie’s approach to menu planning is one of deep collaboration. “We’ll sit down and be like, ‘Alright, what are we getting? What’s cool right now that’s either coming out of the ground or out of the water, or what kind of meat haven’t we had in a while?’” Michael explained. “And we say, ‘Alright, well, we got these really rad beets in. So, we kind of want beets to be the star. But what do we want to do with them?’”

The thrilling unconventionality of the Food, Booze & Hiccups experience is an eclectic testament to the unlikely story of how the culinary couple came together. Stephanie and Michael met when their time completing culinary programs at the Art Institute in Jacksonville, Florida serendipitously overlapped. She had enrolled before him but took a break from school to work at 3030 Ocean in the Harbor Beach Marriott. She was taking a wine and spirits course in the dining room, while he took a culinary art class in the kitchen. “And there’s a big giant window,” Michael described, “so she could see me working. She had just broke up with her ex, and so she pinpointed me.” 

They didn’t actually meet until the day of their practical, which Stephanie explained is “basically the thesis of the culinary world,” or a final presentation for which a culinary student prepares a dish of their choice. To celebrate afterwards, a group of around twenty students went to a bar called the Ale House. “So like, we shot the shit that night, you know, met and whatnot, and kind of left it at that, you know,” Michael recalled. “Went our separate ways. I invited her to come back with me, and she said, ‘No.’” 

As Michael regaled us with their love story, Stephanie occasionally chimed in to provide clarification or correction. At this particular development, she interjected: “That’s almost true. You invited us to come downtown, and as Amanda and I were leaving Ale House, someone sideswiped her car, and we had to call the cops and wait for all that, but I didn’t get your phone number. Honestly, I had no clue what your name was.” 

The two seemed entirely in agreement on the next part, about how she “hunted him down” and got his number through a mutual friend while he was in the middle of a busy meal service at a local restaurant. “And that was the beginning of the end,” Stephanie laughed. 

Having just gotten out of a long relationship and in preparations for a move to Alaska to work on a cruise ship, she offered Michael a proposition: “So, do you want to be the rebound?” 

“I didn’t want to be tied down at all,” Michael said. “So, this worked perfect for me.”

[This is the third year in a row that Ocean Springs has delivered a Small Town Chef Award Winner—read about our previous winners here: Small Town Chefs 2020: Alex Perry and Small Town Chefs 2021: Lauren Joffrion]

The two enjoyed the few weeks together, expecting to part ways when Stephanie left for Alaska. “I was leaving and I was going to be gone forever. And I left April 23 of that year, and I went on the cruise ship. And then when I came back in June, I found out I was pregnant. And we’ve been together ever since!” 

Their son Caiden (who is currently six), was born later that year, and Hudson (now five) came also unexpectedly not far behind. While still living in Jacksonville, the couple started a blog called Food, Booze & Hiccups. It included their recipes and thoughts on food, reviews of gin and other liquors, and advice based on their experience parenting young children while juggling busy restaurant industry jobs. “The hiccups were our kids,” Michael explained with a chuckle. 

The two knew from early on that they wanted to work for themselves, but with two young children at home, as well as Michael’s teenage daughter Hannah Grace, they pursued more traditional employment at restaurants around the Gulf Coast. This included a period when Michael worked in the kitchen of Restaurant Orsay in Jacksonville, where he feels like he really got his training. On Thanksgiving day of 2018, they were both working at a restaurant in Biloxi about a month after their wedding. “And finally, one day I went in and me and the owner just didn’t really mesh, and I basically had enough of it,” Michael recalled of what led him to quit with a colorfully-dramatic four-letter-word. “There were some more words involved, but that’s the short synopsis.”

Michael grabbed his knife bag and walked out of the restaurant. “And that’s not typically my M.O.—you know, I might give you my notice…but I just couldn’t do it anymore.” The owner sent Stephanie home for the day, too—only to call her back in the next morning to fire her. “It was the end of the year, coming up to Christmas with kids at the house,” Stephanie said.

“I just looked at stuff, and I was like, ‘We’re just gonna figure this out, we’re gonna do it for ourselves,’” said Michael. After taking advantage of the rare time off during the holidays, in January of 2019 the couple “just started hustling,” according to Michael. They began brainstorming back to their time in Jacksonville, when they would sometimes work pop-up events in locations beyond traditional restaurant settings. Michael’s parents owned a piece of property in downtown Ocean Springs that wasn’t being used, and it occurred to him and Stephanie that they could set up a table, lights, and an outdoor kitchen there. 

“So, we did the first one, the friends and family dinner. And we had some of our farmers out,” Michael said. “And we made this like six course meal, and we did like a chocolate quail and some really off-the-wall shit that we probably shouldn’t have been doing. But that’s what we do.” 

While Michael and Stephanie had placed utmost focus on the menu, a couple of oyster farmers in attendance, Mike and Anita Arguellas, suggested that they market their offerings as a full dining experience. “After the dinner, we sat back, and we went, ‘Alright, maybe they’re onto something here: this is an overall experience. It’s not just coming out to eat some food, going to your local restaurant…” Michael said. “And so, really early, we were able to step back and go, ‘Okay, how can we enhance this experience even more?’ And it’s just kind of grown from there.” 

As for what to call their new not-restaurant? They harkened back to the name of their blog: Food, Booze & Hiccups. As Michael explained, “It’s kind of funny. It’s catchy. It really does kind of tell our story.” On May 24 of this year, Food, Booze & Hiccups celebrated its third “Dinner-on-the-Lot-iversary,” as Stephanie put it. 

When they started in 2019, Michael and Stephanie didn’t realize how beneficial operating exclusively outdoors and technically operating as caterers rather than a restaurant would soon be. “When COVID hit, we were already doing outdoor dinners,” Stephanie said. “And it’s like, man, people in the South still want a party, it doesn’t matter what’s going on. And there were restaurants around us that we saw building decks outside, with how expensive wood was, and all this stuff. And we’re just standing on our little piece of grass with our tables, just waving like, ‘Hey guys, we’re over here.’” 

Before March of 2020, their budding business was doing pretty well, but they found themselves wondering how to amp things up so they could consistently pay their bills on time. “It was going great, but it was still a struggle. And I hate to say that COVID was a good thing, but COVID is what helped us reach this level,” Stephanie said. 

With Ocean Springs’ growing culinary scene, its laid-back beach culture, and excellent school systems—Michael’s hometown easily became his and Stephanie’s home base, the perfect environment to raise both their kids and their business. “We felt like it’s really a great place to grow up, you know?” Michael said. “Besides from the fact that we’re both just complete beach bums.”

Plus, with a plethora of small produce and oyster farms in the Ocean Springs area, they are never short on inspiring ingredients. “We’re very adventurous, you know, we both want to push the boundaries as much as we can,” Michael said. “We’re very just like down to earth, grassroots kind of people. And so, we wanted to showcase what we had here, product wise, but we wanted to showcase it in a different way.”

The town’s history as an artist’s community holds a special place for chefs who approach cuisine like the Paolettis, too “We look at it from the art standpoint,” said Stephanie. “The people that can stand in front of a piece of art and talk about what the artists may have been thinking for an hour, it boggles my mind. I don’t get it. But we can sit here in front of a plate of food and completely decipher and pick apart the chef and his total childhood and upbringing in the same sense. Because that is art. And we want people to appreciate food as an art piece, as well. It needs to have layers, and textures, and a story.” 

In addition to Dinner on the Lot, Food, Booze & Hiccups also hosts beach dinners and other adult party packages on the beach in Ocean Springs. They are also willing to travel to cater private experiences. Find out more or book an experience at fbhos.com.