Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/3815
Napa's Top Chef F or the last two decades, Michael Chiarello has led a charmed chefdom. From his 1986 opening of Tra Vigne in St. Helena—and later, seven other restaurants—to his successful multi-channel lifestyle retail and catalog shop- ping outlet, NapaStyle, he has once again come home to Napa. "I haven't had a restaurant since 2000, and I've had a bucket of them—too many too count," says Chiarello. "I look at myself as a serial entre- preneur; more ideas than sense and time." From PBS to Fine Living to Bravo's Top Chef Masters, Chiarello found himself going from meeting to meeting, and P&L to P&L. "I can't serve all of these [business] gods well." With allegiance to the restaurant god, and specifically in Napa Valley, Chiarello pays hom- age to his Italian heritage and his California roots with Bottega, which opened December 2008. "The Napa experience starts before you get to the door of the restaurant," he explains. "From the time the plane lands, to the time it takes to make the drive, visit a few wineries and then check into your hotel, the next course starts at our restaurant." Chiarello assembled an all-star team at Bot- tega: General Manager, Sous Chefs and Wine Director, and then opened "on the lowest day of the Dow." You wouldn't know it. With a packed room every night, Bottega—"more Italian than ever," according to Chiarello—is about finding unique ingredients, continuing in the path from farm to table. october 2009 / the tasting panel / 2 While his menu is exciting and the cuisine is raved about, the prices are affordable. He is also much heralded in the wine world for only marking his wines up two times. "We're selling more wine here than anywhere else in the Napa Valley," he tells THE TASTING PANEL. His well-stocked NapaStyle store is a few steps away from the Yountville-based Bottega. Chiarello makes the rounds nightly, greeting guests who strain their necks to watch him work the room, cameras in hand, trying for a snap- shot of his charming persona. And although he's busy as a celebrity chef is wont to be, in the midst of testing 125 recipes for his new Bot- tega book, running the restaurant and farming grapes for his own wine label, he has time to be a dad and husband, living the life, in Napa. —Meridith May Michael farms the wines for his own label, Chiarello Family Vineyards. At his new restaurant, Bottega, in Yountville, CA, Chef Michael Chiarello shows off intriguing ingre- dients, such as red Vene- tian heirloom polenta. PHOTOS: MERIDITH MAY