Marc Vetri on Why the Best Chefs Don’t Just Cook — They Care

TRANSCRIPT

Kirk Bachmann: Hi everyone, I’m Kirk Bachmann, and welcome back to The Ultimate Dish. Today, I’m honored to welcome a true culinary legend, Chef Marc Vetri – the award-winning chef, restaurateur, and founder of Philadelphia’s iconic Vetri Cucina.

A Philadelphia native, Marc opened Vetri Cucina in 1998 with his business partner, Jeff Benjamin. The restaurant quickly gained national acclaim, earning him a spot as one of Food & Wine’s “Best New Chefs” and later winning the James Beard Award for Best Chef Mid-Atlantic.

His influence helped revitalize Philadelphia’s dining scene, leading to the launch of Osteria, Amis, Pizzeria Vetri, Lo Spiedo, and Alla Spina—each making a lasting impact on the city’s culinary landscape.

In 2015, Marc partnered with Urban Outfitters to expand several of his restaurants. And [after] overseeing a successful transition, he returned his focus to pushing culinary boundaries at Vetri Cucina. The restaurant maintained its elite Four Bell rating from the Philadelphia Inquirer and earned a coveted spot on AAA’s exclusive Five Diamond Restaurants list.

Marc’s passion for Italian cuisine has taken him far beyond Philadelphia. In 2020, he opened the pasta-focused Fiorella in Philadelphia’s Italian Market, followed by Mr. Maurice’s Italian in Kyoto, Japan as a tribute to his grandfather.

That same year, he opened Osteria Fiorella in Las Vegas, originally a pop-up that became a permanent fixture at Red Rock Casino Resort & Spa. His presence in Las Vegas continued to grow with the reopening of Vetri Cucina at Palms Casino Resort in 2022, offering breathtaking views from the 56th floor.

Most recently, he launched MVP, a pizza spot inside the Wells Fargo Center, home to the Philadelphia Flyers and 76ers, as well as Pizzeria Salvy, a heartfelt tribute to his father, Sal Vetri, located in the Comcast Technology Center. And in December 2023, he expanded his beloved pasta bar concept with the opening of Fiorella Las Vegas at Durango Casino & Resort.

Beyond the kitchen, Marc founded the Vetri Community Partnership, a nonprofit dedicated to providing children and families with nutrition education. He’s also a prolific writer, having authored five award-winning cookbooks with one new book set to release in Fall 2025.

Join us as we explore Marc’s extraordinary career, his passion for Italian cooking, and what’s next for this legendary chef.

And there he is! Good morning, Chef. How are you?

Marc Vetri: I fell asleep in that intro. It’s so long. It’s been a fun ride.

Kirk Bachmann: Yeah. And it feels like the ride keeps going. I’m so excited that we’re chatting today. Many may not know that you spend some time in Boulder. I’m sitting in Boulder. Escoffier’s got a school here.

I’ll tell the quick, quick story that I shared with you earlier.

Marc Vetri: That we met. Yeah.

Kirk Bachmann: How we met sitting at a bar – a beautiful bar – at a restaurant in Boulder called Corrida, which is a Spanish steakhouse owned by Bryan Dayton, who’s just a mainstay here in Boulder and the state of Colorado. A great, great, great guy. I’m sitting there at the bar with my wife to my right. Lo and behold, you’re to my left. I’m minding my own business, and my wife, Gretchen, leans in and says, “That’s Marc Vetri next to you.”

I’m like, “Mind your own business.”

She was like, “That’s Marc Vetri next to you.” Lo and behold, I leaned over, she leaned over, we said hello, and we met. Here we are today. I’m so, so privileged and appreciative.

We’re close with Bobby.

Marc Vetri: He’s amazing.

A Wedding Celebration in Boulder

Kirk Bachmann: Did I hear this correctly? You and your wife had your wedding party at Frasca, Bobby’s restaurant here in Boulder?

Marc Vetri: Sort of. It was a sort of surprise. We actually got married up at the Flagstaff House.

Kirk Bachmann: The Flagstaff House. Beautiful.

Marc Vetri: Long story short, we actually went to Boulder for this yoga thing. Doing the yoga. You guys had Richard Freeman out there. He was like this world-renowned yogi, and he was having a seminar. This is probably 2000 – the winter of 2005, because we got married September 2005. We were out there. We did the yoga seminar, and then I asked her to marry me.

I was like, “I don’t want to get married in Philly. I just [want to get married anywhere else]. I have relatives who I don’t want to come, but I’ve got to invite them.” You know, normal family stuff.

Kirk Bachmann: They may listen to this, Chef!

Marc Vetri: She was like, “Where do you want to get married?”

I was like, “Hey, how about we go to Boulder? Love it there.”

“Okay.”

We looked around Flagstaff House. We got married on a Saturday at [noon]. They had you could get married from noon to four for $5000, rent out the restaurant, or you could get married from five to midnight for $18,000. I was like, “I love an afternoon wedding.”

Kirk Bachmann: I love an afternoon wedding!

Marc Vetri: Oh my God, it’s amazing. Afternoons are great! We’re getting married.

Kirk Bachmann: Oh my gosh!

Marc Vetri: So we got married, and then that evening, everyone was off.

“Hey, you guys figure out whatever you want to do. Make reservations. We’ll do a Sunday morning hike.” There were like 75 folks there, so I’m like, “I’m going to go to Frasca because they’re open for one year now.” I had known Bobby from other stuff, but I didn’t know him really well.

I went there, and literally, my whole wedding – everyone was there. I was walking around the room. Then they ended up staying open late and opening up bottles of champagne. It was like an impromptu thing.

Kirk Bachmann: I love it. I love it. And that’s so like Bobby. The art of hospitality, just the nicest people. And they’re doing great.

Marc Vetri: Oh my God, yeah.

Falling in Love with Food

Kirk Bachmann: Our students aspire to go there. They hire who they can. They keep moving.

I always like to open these shows talking about roots and influences and the journeys. We have not just my family that listen to the podcast. We do have students and people around the country. I always like to start, Chef, by going back to the early stages of your career. What people don’t realize often is all the work that goes into it, the dreams and the influences and all that, if you will. Would you mind taking us back to those weekends cooking with your Sicilian grandmother in South Philly? What did you learn from her? What did you take with for your incredible career?

Marc Vetri: Mostly from that I just learned the love of food. That was all about making food, welcoming in everyone into your home, and sitting down and having a big meal together. That’s not only food, that’s also hospitality. That’s the restaurant industry. That Sunday sort of thing for me was the essence of the restaurant industry. I wasn’t thinking about it like that then. I was just thinking, “We’re going down to my father’s mother’s house for dinner. That’s what we do Sundays.” But looking at it now, it’s the essence of everything that we do in this industry.

I just fell in love with it there. I looked forward to it. I always wanted to head down early to help her make stuff. Then I started getting into making things, making the meatballs, stuffing the artichokes, making the gravy, and all that stuff. I just fell in love with that routine.

When I was fifteen years old, I wanted to be able to work. I was able to work a few days a week after school at restaurants, washing dishes. Everything was always…I went to school for marketing and finance; I worked nights in restaurants. I went out to L.A. to go to music school. I worked in restaurants to make money. And everything I was always doing, but working in restaurants. I always found that restaurant vibe, making food for people, making folks happy, seeing them eat and smile, learning all that stuff was really what I loved.

I was out in L.A. It was the early 90s. I was trying to finish music school. I was in a band. I was working in restaurants. I was kind of like, “What am I doing? I really love restaurants.” Then I met a guy who was from Sicily. I was just sitting there with him.

He was like, “My friend has a restaurant in northern Italy. He has rooms for the line cooks. You want to go?”

I was 24 or 25 years old. I bought a one-way to Italy and started working. I spent the next year, year-and-a-half there, and that’s when I knew. “Okay.”

A Shared Musical Experience

Kirk Bachmann: This is what I’m doing. Yeah.

I love that you went right into [the story.] This is so perfect because the majority of people that we chat with, the thought leaders that come onto our show are chefs. For whatever reasons, you could see the Dave Matthews, the U2, the Fleetwood Mac up on the wall there. The fact that you studied music tells me that you love music. Do you still practice music?

Marc Vetri: Almost every day. The guitar. Me and my buddy, Phil Roy, we had a little thing going on where we were doing food and music. We started [producing] things at the restaurant, selling. Then we ended up doing a small thing where we opened up for a larger act for a little while. We did some shows and stuff. I love it. I’ve been playing guitar for 45 years at this point.

Kirk Bachmann: I just love it. It’s music and motorcycles. My motorcycle is in the garage more than it is in the street these days. As you get older, it gets more dangerous.

Marc Vetri: Of course.

Kirk Bachmann: If I had to ask you the top three bands from Marc Vetri, of all time, what would they be?

Marc Vetri: Number one for me is always very easy. Led Zeppelin. I was the Zephead.

Kirk Bachmann: I love it.

Marc Vetri: My whole life. I’m a classic rock. I can honestly say after number one, the others are all just looped in the top fifteen almost. The Stones, obviously. The Beatles. If it was one, two, I would say Zeppelin, the Beatles. There’s a plethora of other stuff now. I’m really into the Dead. Been into them forever.

Kirk Bachmann: I love it. You said it perfectly. Zeppelin – we grew up with Zeppelin. Everybody else is kind of in the mix. I love U2. I’ve seen them a million times. Great music. Fleetwood Mac.

Marc Vetri: Did you see them in Vegas at the Sphere?

Kirk Bachmann: I’m like the only person I know that didn’t see them at the Sphere. Everyone says it was-

Marc Vetri: I didn’t see that show, but I saw the Dead there. It was amazing.

Kirk Bachmann: Was it just incredible?

Marc Vetri: It’s really cool. You should definitely go.

Kirk Bachmann: You mentioned the Dead. Even the John Mayer version of the Dead traveling around, they played at Folsom three or four years in a row. In fact, their last show at Folsom two summers ago…

Marc Vetri: I was there.

Kirk Bachmann: Were you there?! We were there, too!

Marc Vetri: I went to the show that they had to actually stop because of the lightning.

Kirk Bachmann: Yes! Yes! That’s the show.

Marc Vetri: The third one I think, yeah. I was there.

Kirk Bachmann: They had that crazy light show with the drones.

Marc Vetri: [They also jammed] which they didn’t have at the other shows. And then Matthews came out.

Kirk Bachmann: And played the entire third set. My wife lost her mind.

Marc Vetri: It was an unbelievable set. It was one of the best. That was one of the better shows I was at. I’m so happy. I was there then. I was thinking about going to the first one, but I wasn’t able, so I went to that one.

A Free Education

Kirk Bachmann: We got lucky with that pick, too. It’s always around the Fourth of July, so you never know when to go.

If we could go back to L.A. You worked with Wolfgang for a little while, right?

Marc Vetri: Yeah. I opened up the Malibu restaurant, Granita. I didn’t open it up. I was there the first month.

Kirk Bachmann: What was that like? I’ve just always been a fan. My parents brought me a menu years ago.

Marc Vetri: It was one of those things, again. I think there’s a reason for everything. I had heard they were going to open. I just went over there two weeks after they opened. “Hey, do you need anybody?”

The guy was like, “No. But stop back again. You never know.” I stopped back again. I stopped back like a week later, and he was like, “Hey, one of our line cooks didn’t show up. You want to work?” I was like, “Yeah! Yeah, sure.”

So I worked the night, and he was like, “Hey, man, why don’t you stop in tomorrow?” I was like, “Alright.” I just kept going back. I went back for like five weeks almost every day, every night, just working for free. They didn’t have anything for me. I was like an extra, but they’ll let me in because I was obviously knocking down their door.

Six weeks in, somebody walked out, didn’t give any notice. They were like, “You’ve got your work here now.”

Kirk Bachmann: I love that. That’s how it happens sometimes, right? Serendipitously, you’re just there at the right time.

Marc Vetri: It was cool. It was awesome. I look at that as my restaurant school because that’s where I really learned. I had never learned how to make a stock, butcher fish or a lamb or an animal. They were getting in – this is early 90s – there wasn’t pre-sliced, four ounces of this. It was like, “Here’s a big pig. Here’s a whole lamb. Here’s a whole chicken.” I used to also work nights. I asked them if I could stop in early and work with the morning guys. We had to learn how to make all these items. I used to go in early for free, and then I would punch in at four o’clock for my shift. Nowadays, that’s super-illegal. Class action lawsuit, blah, blah, blah. But it was for me.

Kirk Bachmann: That’s how you learned.

Marc Vetri: That’s how I learned. Now they’d look at, “Oh, restaurant owners taking advantage of you.” No, man, that’s not what’s happening. That was my free school.

Kirk Bachmann: Speaking of learning, I’m really interested – and I think our students would love to hear – how you started to hone your craft. You spent a lot of time in Italy. The different regions of different countries, and in your case, Italy, is what is so fascinating to me. I’m wondering how that experience and different sorts of techniques and dishes shaped your perspective on Italian cuisine based on what you already had in your DNA. Then, Marc, when you compare that to American cuisine, or even the mindset of chefs in America, how is that different, and what should young people take from that? Is it still a great advantage to get overseas or go somewhere, experience culture, and then bring it back and try to blend in?

Marc Vetri: That’s always a great experience. You’re never going to get something like the real thing. Sometimes now you can learn more working somewhere here than over there. Listen, I could never not recommend heading overseas and staying somewhere for a few months, learning and seeing how they act over there, the different cultures. That’s amazing.

I would also say you’re going to learn maybe more here with us. I have a lot of line cooks that want to spend a year in Italy. I’m like, It’s harder now. You need the visas. When I went, it was not. Because [we have] restaurants that are making the same or nicer food. I would recommend to head over there for a week, a week-and-a-half, maybe two weeks, hang out, maybe stage at a place, but stay working here.

I still go to Italy a lot just for my own inspiration. I can look at something, I can eat something, and be like, “Oh! I know how to make that.” I can figure that out. Sometimes the look of things, the ambiance of things, how they’re serving things, different combinations of things that I haven’t really thought about. “Oh my God! That’s kind of cool. Why didn’t I ever think about that?”

Yes and no.

Doing it all Wrong

Kirk Bachmann: I’d love to take that and talk a little bit more about when you opened up Vetri Cucina, and what your vision for that restaurant was. I found a quote, Chef, from you when you first opened. The quote is, “When I first opened, it was more about ‘Where’s the red sauce? Where’s the veal Marsala?’ I’d say, ‘Well, I don’t have veal Marsala, but I have sweetbreads and thin-sliced prosciutto,’ and the customer would say, ‘What’s a sweetbread?’”

What was that learning curve?

Marc Vetri: There wasn’t a lot of restaurants that had real food from Italy. It was the American version of it, which is awesome. I was raised on it. Meatballs and all that wonderful stuff. I still eat it now, but I wanted to open up a real restaurant that you would actually find in Italy: where you eat shallots and some apps first, and then you’d have a small noodle, then you have some meat or fish.

I just used to get folks the first year walking in all the time, [and say] “There’s nothing on this menu for me.” I was like, “Alright.” And I had folks walk out. “You’re never going to make it. This is ridiculous.” I don’t know. I like the food.

This is the late 90s. There was not real Italian restaurants in America for the most part. There were a few here and there.

Kirk Bachmann: As I think about that, the words “perseverance,” and you stuck with your vision and your plan. Obviously, we’re so glad that you did because it’s all changed now. People look for authentic.

Marc Vetri: The way to motivate me is to tell me something’s not going to work.

Kirk Bachmann: And then you’re going to do it.

Marc Vetri: Oh, I’ll make it work. I’ll make that round thing fit in that square hole. I can make that work.

That’s what everybody did. They said, “You’re opening up a restaurant on the wrong street. This is the wrong area. It’s not large enough. You’re not going to make enough money. You’re doing the wrong food.”

I was like, “Okay.”

Kirk Bachmann: They told Charlie Trotter the same thing. They told Bobby the same thing. “What are you [doing] opening up a restaurant from Friuli here in Boulder?” And here we are.

Marc Vetri: Oh my God, yeah! I’m sure he heard it all. He heard it all. “Why Boulder?”

A Partnership with Urban Outfitters

Kirk Bachmann: And it was a crazy time! You hear these stories about 25 years ago in Boulder. There were a lot of entrepreneurs here doing some cool things, and here we are now setting the tone.

When you think about building an empire like you have, and the art of pasta, it feels like after a lot of success, you continued to wear your entrepreneurial hat, and proceeded to launch this incredible lineup of Vetri-family restaurants, not just in Philly. I’m curious. I didn’t know about the Urban Outfitters piece. By the way, I love Urban Outfitters. How can you not? I was first introduced to them in Portland, Oregon. I’m just wondering what the catalyst for that business move was?

Marc Vetri: It was like 2014. I had seven restaurants. I opened up the Pizzeria, and that was like, “Wow! This is awesome.” It was mobbed, and it was making a lot of money. I was like, “Wow, this one’s really cool. This one might have legs. We could open up many of these.”

We had always self-funded everything. It was just me and my partner, Jeff. We had loans. We owed the bank whatever it was, three or four million dollars. We had both of our houses mortgaged and refinanced. We basically took all the risk. I wanted to open up a lot of these, but I thought maybe to open these, we ought to get some financial guys. We started looking around. The Urban folks, they’re from Philly, and we’ve known each other for a while. He’d eat in the restaurant a lot.

We spoke with one financial organization that was like, “We want this. We’re going to give you three million dollars to open up another four of these things. We’re going to own seventy-five percent.”

I was like, “What? That doesn’t sound too great.”

Then Urban had this more thoughtful, new way to do it. They were like, “We were thinking of this whole food and retail thing. Everyone’s shopping online now. There’s less movement in the actual store. We want to stick things around our store that are going to make people head there, and then they’re going to go to our store. So whether it’s restaurants, hair salons, whatever it is.” They had this whole larger thing that they wanted. They were like, “And we love this. We love the numbers for it. We’ll give you three million dollars for fifteen percent.”

I was like, “Well, that sounds way better than seventy-five percent.”

Kirk Bachmann: That sounds great!

Marc Vetri: We went with them. We opened up another one. It was right when…I don’t know if you remember when Shake Shack went on the New York Stock Exchange. It was the morning that they announced they were going on the stock exchange. They were going public, yada, yada. I think Urban was thinking, “Oh, we could do the same thing with this pizzeria.”

They were like, “We want to own the Pizzeria, the whole thing.” I’m like, “All right.” I’d never thought of selling anything before. It’s not what anyone opens up a restaurant for. Selling your restaurant, it’s not a thing. You don’t sell restaurants. You leave, and you leave everything there, and you lose all your money. That’s what we do. We don’t sell things in restaurants; we lose it all.

Kirk Bachmann: We lose them!

Marc Vetri: That’s it. They were like, “We want to own these. We want to open up more of them. But you have to come work with us to run them.

I was like, “Well, I can’t really because I have six other restaurants.”

They were like, “All right. Let me think about it.”

Then one week later, they were like, “What if we swallow up all of your restaurants, and then you come work for us. You run your restaurants, and then we open up more of these?”

I was like, “Oh, that sounds interesting.”

They were like, “Think about it for a week, what’s in, what’s out.”

So I said, “All right. Let me think about it for a week.” I thought about it for a week.

And I said, “I’ll sell you everything, but I won’t sell you Vetri because if something happens, I don’t want to be without a restaurant. I want to have my baby. I’m never going to sell that. Let’s figure it out.” So we figured that out.

That’s how the initial thing went. When I left – sold it in 2015, worked with them for two years, and then I left, I think, in 2017. But then I only had the one restaurant again. But that’s when we opened up Vetri Vegas. Things kind of spiraled from there.

Managing Candidate Expectations

Kirk Bachmann: When I hear you talking about all of the moving parts, and I think about the business side, Marc, of everything. You’ve interviewed and hired, and your people have interviewed and hired thousands of people over the years. As you think about yourself entering the business years prior, what stands out to you in an interview or in a prospective employee? Are you looking for a part of yourself? Especially with young people today, entering the industry with different expectations and aspirations about hours and work-life balance, I’m just curious what you look for in a [candidate]?

Marc Vetri: I just look for someone who is into it. Someone who doesn’t have a resume of six months, six months, six months. It’s just all about working hard, work ethic, managing your expectations. You have limits, that’s fine. If you walk in and are like, “I only want to work four days a week, and I only want to do this, and I only want to do this.”

I’ll be like, “Fine, as long as you show up and you work hard for those four days.” But also manage your expectations. The guy who is showing up early, leaving late, really showing me that he wants this, working extra, he’s the one that I’m going to move to sous chef. He or she is going to hop right over you because you have a limit. Know that I’ve got my ten-thousand hours in a short amount of years because I worked nonstop. That’s not for everyone, and I understand that. But you’re going to get yours in, maybe. You’re going to be a lot older before you start understanding this stuff.”

Excited about Learning and a Passion for Pasta

Kirk Bachmann: Well said. That’s good advice and good storytelling.

Chef, you’re so humble. Everything you read and everything on social media, when people hear your name – and I’m not just saying this because you’re here in front of me – but it’s synonymous with the beautiful craft and the art of pasta-making, the art of cooking. I think even here at the school, students get a lot of anxiety. They think that making great pasta is complex. You’ve become this champion of simplicity. It’s your personality. It’s just food; let’s focus on the technique before anything.

I’m curious: with all of the incredible concepts and the stories and not losing Vetri, is there one particular part of your portfolio that you’re more proud of than anything?

Marc Vetri: That’s hard to say. Maybe it’s my foundation. Maybe it’s the work that I’ve done also with Alex’s Lemonade Stand. I don’t know that it’s such a big restaurant, although Vetri is like the mother ship. It is my baby, and I spend more hours here than anything.

It’s just everything. It’s just the fact that I keep learning and figuring things out, and I’m still excited about it. I think the most interesting thing is when we have this new pasta maker here. Been with us a few months. I was upstairs late, working on this new filindeu, which is this Sardinian thing where you stretch the noodles with your hand and put it on something. I just learned it last year. I’m practicing it. I’m all excited. I’m up there, and I’m like, “I think this is the best one.” I look at this and this. I was so excited. She was just laughing. I was like, “What are you laughing [about]?”

She was like, “I just think it’s amazing that you’ve been in this industry for so long, you have all these restaurants, but you’re here learning something, and you’re so excited about it. You look like an eight-year-old who’s got some ice cream.”

I’m like, “Yeah! Because I love it.” I think of that.

That, I think, makes them excited about stuff. They see me still excited and learning.

Kirk Bachmann: I’m excited just hearing the story! I absolutely love it.

What I was going to talk to you about next is giving back. In many ways, you’re giving back. Even the attention that you provide this person is noticed. I just love that.

Before we get to the community partnership, is there any sneak peek, or is there anything you can tell us about the newest book that’s coming out in the fall?

Marc Vetri: “The Pasta Book.” Very original name. It’s amazing. That was not a name yet.

Kirk Bachmann: No one took that.

Marc Vetri: No one took “The Pasta Book.” I don’t know.

“Mastering” was all about the science of the wheat and the flour and how things work in that regard, whereas this one is more about the whole process, the whole creative. Why this works with this. Why a certain thickness works with this kind of stuffing or this kind of noodle. Why whole eggs work for some things, why egg yolks work for some things, why this works with this. It’s just a whole behind-the-scenes process of how we figure out certain things. It’s a really good book.

Kirk Bachmann: I know it is. Do you want your cookbooks to be soiled in the kitchen, on the counter?

Marc Vetri: Soiled, flour all over them, oil.

Nourishing People Through Food Education

Kirk Bachmann: Olive oil. I love that. I love that.

We have to talk a little bit beyond the kitchen. You’re deeply involved in food education, nutrition, philanthropy with the Vetri Community Partnership. First, a big thank you because it’s so important. It’s so important to continue to give back.

Marc Vetri: I think it is important.

Kirk Bachmann: What’s the mission behind the cooking lab, the mobile teaching kitchen?

Marc Vetri: Basically, our mission statement is we nourish the minds, bodies, neighborhoods with nutrition education through food and cooking. We have the mobile van. We go to farmers’ markets. We go to after-school programs. We have our Vetri Cooking Lab where we host lessons: how to use a knife, various recipes, various foods. We teach the importance of fresh vegetables.

We have these neighborhood labs. Our offices are on Not just Big Boring Street. We invite neighbors in weekly for food lessons, cooking lessons. We make a meal together, and then we sit down, and we eat the meal together, which is also a very important thing within our foundation. We think of ourselves as the missing link. When you head into some of these neighborhoods and you see they don’t have the access to certain fruits and vegetables, and then you stick a farmers’ market there, they go there. They’re like, “How am I supposed to use this squash? How am I supposed to use this zucchini?” We’re there, and we’re like, “Hey, here’s how you slice a squash. Here’s how you roast a squash. Here’s how you saute a squash. Here’s four different recipes with that squash. Here’s a sample of it.” Then they eat it. “Oh my God! This is wonderful.” They buy the squash.

There’s all that. We’re in multiple schools. We touch basically or have thirty-thousand single food experiences with individuals throughout the year. We have thirty-five staff. We have a $2.5 million budget that we have to raise money for. It’s a pretty large operation. We have an amazing CEO in Maddy Booth. We’re just doing what we do: [nurturing] people. Food education, nutrition education. We’re in medical schools.

We give fourth-year medical students who get no nutrition education at all through medical school. We show them, “You don’t have to just say to folks, ‘you should eat vegetables.’ Everybody knows that. You should learn recipes, and what vegetables could actually help with certain things: heart disease, high cholesterol, whatever it is you have to work with. Here’s foods, and here’s recipes, and here are other items that can actually help you. You can recommend these.” The medical students love it.

Kirk Bachmann: That’s just amazing. First of all, thank you on behalf of everyone for all that work. I’ve seen that research, and it’s almost hard to believe-

Marc Vetri: It’s crazy.

Kirk Bachmann: -medical students don’t get basic nutrition.

Marc Vetri: Any nutrition education.

Kirk Bachmann: It’s insane!

Marc Vetri: Not even a basic, Hey! This has this in it. This is iron. Someone who has low iron: spinach. They don’t know that. They don’t know that.

Kirk Bachmann: It’s crazy.

Marc Vetri: They know the iron supplements. “Here’s a script for iron supplements.”

Kirk Bachmann: That’s a whole other podcast. I could go down that rabbit hole really quick.

Marc Vetri: I know. It’s insane.

Show Up and Work

Kirk Bachmann: Chef, like I said at the beginning of the show, the work that goes into the years, the double shifts – your schooling – people can never really fully appreciate that. At the end of the day, not just as a chef but as a leader, as a visionary, as an entrepreneur, as a philanthropist, is there any advice that you would give to young people – or anyone – entering this sector, this industry, this craft that we love, that could help them make an impact beyond the kitchen?

Marc Vetri: It’s such a hard thing. This worked for me because I just love it. It’s what I love. I would actually say to anyone who’s actually thinking about it, just make sure this is really what you want in life. Make sure this is what you like, what you want to do. You have to love this industry more than anything to succeed at it and to make an impact. You can make an impact – anyone can make an impact by just showing up. Showing. There’s no secret. There’s nothing you have to figure out. There’s nothing you have to do. Show up. Do all the extra stuff.

It’s like you’ve been hearing, especially the last four or five years. Writers have been writing about how awful the industry is now. Owners take advantage of you, and nobody offers health insurance.

Me and Bobby – when I’m out there for the summer, we ride bikes Mondays in the afternoons. We ride for hours, and we just kind of talk. One of them, it was just article after article after article about this in the industry. Me and him, we were just like, “I don’t understand.” Then, I think someone wrote an article on what this industry needs. We need fairer pay, health insurance, 401K. They need a great culture.” Me and Bobby were both like, “Well, then both of our restaurant organizations have all that.”

If you’re working for [someone] who’s not offering you health insurance and not offering you a 401K, leave. Why are you going to work there? If nobody wants to work for them, they’ll go out of business. It will resolve itself. But don’t write an article about how awful someone is when you can just leave. I don’t understand. There [are] restaurant organizations, many of them, that have really awesome work environments, really great culture that offer the benefits, the health insurance, all that stuff. They have multiple restaurants, so there’s room to move up from line cook to sous chef to chef; from server to assistant manager to manager to somm, to maybe even to ownership.

I’ve given chefs ownership. Bobby Stuckey has given managers ownership. It’s all out there. You just have to show up and work.

Kirk Bachmann: Such good advice. My wife, Gretchen, always says, “No one can make you feel a certain way but yourself. You all have choices.” You summarized that beautifully. We all have choices.

Marc Vetri: We all have choices. If this industry, like everyone is saying, is so awful, leave it.

Kirk Bachmann: I love the industry, too, mostly because there are amazing people like yourself. Like Bryan, like others, like Wolfgang, that we work with.

Chef, this has been so much fun and such an honor. Hope that you ping me. The next time you’re in Boulder, if anything, my wife wants to come in and have a drink with you.

Marc Vetri: Do you fly fish?

Kirk Bachmann: Oh yeah.

Marc Vetri: We should go fly fishing this summer.

Kirk Bachmann: I would love that. I would absolutely love that. I’m going to get online and get some Howler equipment.

Marc Vetri: Oh my God, yeah [00:46:14].

Marc Vetri’s Ultimate Dish

Kirk Bachmann: Hey, but Chef, before I let you go, the name of our show is The Ultimate Dish, and it’s a tough, tough question. If I asked you – and it could be a memory –

Marc Vetri: Oh my God! You’re going to give me the “What’s your favorite?”

Kirk Bachmann: What’s the ultimate dish, buddy? Come on now. What is the ultimate dish?

Marc Vetri: The ultimate – the ultimate, ultimate, ultimate thing for me is late-night when I get home from work, and I just need an hour to relax, my favorite thing in the world is raisin bran. Ultimate dish. Raisin bran!

But it’s not just raisin bran. You have to leave it in – and this is going to mind blow – frozen raisin brand. Leave it in the freezer.

Kirk Bachmann: No way.

Marc Vetri: Leave your raisin bran in the freezer. Take a bowl, stick the milk in. It’s icy and cold and eat it late at night. Ultimate dish.

Kirk Bachmann: I can honestly say we’ve never, ever had that. That goes right to the top of the podium there. My goodness.

Marc Vetri: That’s all I got.

Kirk Bachmann: Hey, I look forward to seeing you at some point in Boulder. Thank you for your time. Congratulations on the incredible career. Always the best.

Marc Vetri: Thanks so much for having me.

Kirk Bachmann: Absolutely.

Thank you for listening to the Ultimate Dish podcast, brought to you by Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts. Visit escoffier.edu/podcast to find any materials mentioned during the podcast, including notes, links and other resources. And if you can, please leave us a rating on Apple or Spotify, and subscribe to support our show. This helps us reach more aspiring individuals ready to take the next step toward their dream careers. Thanks for listening.