Photo by Brenda Maitland
When he was just a lad, Michael Gulotta penned an essay for his fifth grade English class on what he wanted to be when he grew up. “I’d forgotten all about it until I came across the worn paperwork in my old upstairs bedroom after Katrina,” he said.
“When I grow up, I want to have a restaurant,” he wrote.
Now, several decades later, his self-proclaimed prophecy has been fulfilled, and he and his partners, brother Jeff Gulotta and former schoolmate Jeffrey Bybee, are the proud owners of one of New Orleans’ most exciting and successful new restaurants, MoPho on City Park Avenue in New Orleans’ Mid-City.
Gulotta notes that at the age of six or seven he was already obsessed with Asian cooking. He was a huge fan of the Yan Can Cook PBS cuisine series. “This guy was wild,” said Gulotta. “He would throw things together with lightning-like speed, engaging his audience with his skills and his fervor.”
Already mesmerized by the art of cooking, when Gulotta couldn’t watch his favorite food show, his mother would tape episodes for later viewing. “I was so intrigued by Yan’s moves I would attempt to prepare dishes from his show,” Gulotta said. “When I was about ten or eleven, I would make a list of the ingredients from one of his dishes, and my Mom would go shopping for them. Then she would have to do all the chopping because I wasn’t allowed to handle a sharp knife yet.”
There was no doubt that the young cooking enthusiast was going to culinary school. But tuitions at the big schools like Culinary Institute of America (CIA) and Johnson and Wales were out of sight financially.
“Fortunately, the TOPS (Taylor Opportunity Program for Students) program was available, and I was able to get a scholarship to Nicholls State University’s culinary program,” said Gulotta. At Nicholls’ Chef John Folse Culinary Institute, the over-achieving nineteen-year-old Gulotta would drive from Thibodaux to Donaldsonville to work at Folse’s Lafitte’s Landing Restaurant at Bittersweet Plantation. “I was the garde manger in the kitchen under Chef Steve Zucker,” he said.
While still in culinary school, he applied at Restaurant August. No openings, but Gulotta landed a job with the amazing Pete Vasquez at Marisol. “Pete put me through the ringer,” said Gulotta, “baking all the breads, making the pasta and all the desserts. “It was just the two of us running the kitchen except for a helper on the weekends.”
Gulotta would make the drive from Thibodaux to New Orleans five days a week and stay in town to work all weekend. ”I really learned paté and charcuterie there,” he said.
After a year at Marisol and several additional tries, Gulotta was hired at August. “I was still enrolled in school,” he said. “I told John [Besh] that I would work at August for the next six months before leaving for a pre-planned work and study program in Italy, and he agreed.”
Gulotta spent several years at August, punctuated by extended experiences abroad: he attended the Italian Culinary Institute for Foreigners, where he was taught traditional ways of preparing Italian cuisine. He then received an assignment at Ristorante Giunchetto in the coastal village of Bordighera in Liguria, just an hour from France on the Italian Riviera, where he made pastas and prepared seafood fresh out of the sea. He also took a year-and-a-half stint at Restaurant Spielwig in Germany’s Black Forest.
His ultimate return to New Orleans was prompted by Hurricane Katrina. (“We had sixteen feet of water in [my mother’s] house,” he said.)
“I started back at Restaurant August as the pastry chef, working garde manger, preparing the foie gras, salads, and such for the first few months,” he said.
Gulotta served as Steve McHugh’s executive sous chef. “With all the other new Besh restaurants opening and the tight kitchen team splitting up and going to different venues—I got a kind of ‘battlefield promotion’ as the next chef de cuisine in February 2007.”
For the following six years, Gulotta served in that role, putting on dinners and handling the restaurant’s huge off-site catering business.
The Besh Group had so many concepts on the drawing board and the teams to open these new restaurants; it would have been easier to stay insulated with a big company, Gulotta noted. But doing it on his own was “more fulfilling and challenging … being forced outside of your comfort zone.”
On opening his own establishment, Gulotta said, “The idea was to do it from start to finish. I had to find investors, get a general contractor, go to City Hall for permits, and more. You are suddenly not just practicing your trade but operating a business.”
Gulotta left August in late summer 2013 and opened MoPho in less than six months.
“We have an amazing team, most of who have pretty much worked together over the past few years,” he added. “My brother Jeff was with the Besh Restaurant Group and was the opening front-of-the-house training manager and wrote all the company manuals.” He was also general manager at August for two to three years, said Gulotta.
“Jeffrey was our go-to captain at August. He also held positions at both Tony Angello’s and Emeril’s Delmonico,” he added. Gulotta’s sous chefs are also August vets who spent time training in Germany at Restaurant Spielwig.
MoPho’s menu reflects his two favorite Asian cuisines, Thai and Vietnamese, as well as items inspired from his favorite restaurants, Banana Blossom Thai Café and the Vietnamese Tan Dinh, both on New Orleans’ West Bank. On his days off, Gulotta would go there. “Basically, I would think of how I would prepare some of the dishes I liked best—with more New Orleans in it.”
He also had a feeling for the restaurant’s ambience. “I wanted it to be simple, yet warm and inviting, with a great wine and cocktail program to meld our Southern hospitality with the food that’s perfect for the city,” he said.
Situated in a small strip mall across from Delgado Community College, the restaurant is casual and welcoming, although often packed. A charming patio holds a variety of house-grown herbs, fruit trees, picnic tables, and a fire-pit for Saturday afternoon whole-hog roasts, all topped with a curved, peek-a-boo, sun-sail shade.
Although Southeast Asian and Louisiana cultures are different in many ways, Gulotta sees similarities in their climates, abundant resources, and respect for cuisine. “After all, we were a French colony; they were a French colony,” he said.
A convergence of styles and flavors, MoPho’s menu is Gulotta’s take on Asian cuisine expressed through his own tastes and culinary background as well as through Louisiana’s culinary roots. Among the multiple Asian-oriented offerings with local connections are fried Gulf shrimp spring rolls; grilled Two Run Farms beef brisket with tamarind mustard glaze, gingered apple, and Canebrake beer-braised onions; and whole fried Gulf fish, battered with a mixture of cooked black rice grains and rice flour and served with citrus, soy, and cilantro.
In addition, guests can choose crispy, fried P&J oysters with Easter egg radish and pickled blue cheese; and poboys like NOLA hot sausage, fried shrimp with Chisesi ham, sloppy roast duck, and others—all available with MoPho mayo, pickled vegetables, fresh herbs, jalapeños, and chicken liver paté.
Many patrons come for the pho or popcorn rice and vermicelli bowls, where seasonal local ingredients can be added. But perhaps the hottest pick on the menu is the crispy chicken wings appetizer with nuoc mam, the classic Vietnamese fish sauce to which Gulotta adds a caramel base and then stirs in chile flakes, garlic, and ginger. “I wanted to make sure it was addictive,” he said.
In the beverage department, the bar lists offer an exciting selection of spirited cocktails, bubble teas, beers, and well-chosen wines to accompany the chef’s creations.
So how did the restaurant get its name? “We were sitting around, trying to think of something witty or pertinent to the location, something different, and we just couldn’t think of anything that worked,” said Gulotta.
“My wife said, ‘Let’s just call it MoPho for now until we think of a better name.’ So it became the MoPho Project. However, when we were working towards the opening with the investors and referred to it as the MoPho Project, they just howled and thought it was perfect.” Although some have suggested otherwise, Gulotta noted the name means “so much more than pho!”
As for Gulotta’s initial culinary inspiration, Martin Yan is still at it—fascinating little children with Asian cuisine preparations through multiple cooking-show series broadcast in more than fifty countries worldwide. Who says TV isn’t good for kids? Surely not Michael Gulotta!
Recipes to try at home: Pepper Jelly-Braised Cedar Key Clams; The MoPho Som Tam; Crispy Fried Oysters with MoPho Mayo
Details. Details. Details.
MoPho 514 City Park Avenue New Orleans, La. mophomidcity.com • (504) 482-6845 Open seven days Sunday–Thursday, 11 am–10 pm Friday–Saturday, 11 am–11 pm No reservations. Most credit cards accepted.
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