Bryan Voltaggio - Chef of Charlie Palmer Steak

A chef who might rather be snowboarding

(This interview took place before he left the kitchen at Charlie Palmer Steak to open his own place, Volt Restaurant.)

Bryan Voltaggio is fantasizing over other career options, and they’re pretty zany.

With a laugh, the executive chef of Charlie Palmer Steak suggests that he “could be a street vendor — that would be fun.” Then he offers, “If I wasn’t a chef, I’d want to be a landscaper.” There’s a pause, and then he announces, “I want to come up with a kitchen where you can cook outside.”

These revelations start to make sense when you realize that the Frederick, Md., native who loves hunting, four-wheeling and snowboarding spends most of his days indoors. He’s at the helm of the Washington branch of the Charlie Palmer restaurant empire — and nostalgic for the hours he passed, as a boy of 5 or 6, in the garden with his Irish grandfather, digging, planting and picking vegetables, which they took to the kitchen to cook together.

“In the memories I have of him, I was always cooking with him. That’s pretty much all there is that I remember,” he says, then grins. “There are pictures of me in a little apron.” There is also a photo record of him and his brother, now the fine dining chef at West Virginia resort The Greenbrier, caught stealing vegetables from the garden.

During those years, Voltaggio’s grandmother was ill and his mother was working, so his grandfather took over the cooking. He had learned how while testing the equipment he sold as a Whirlpool representative.

It wasn’t long before Voltaggio took it up himself. Now 30, the chef has been cooking seriously for half his life. At 15, he enrolled in a culinary vocational program, working simultaneously at a local hotel. By the time he was 18, he had become its sous chef. A stint as executive chef on a private estate followed. Only after those years of practical experience did he settle on training at the Culinary Institute of America.

“So many people don’t work before they decide to go to cooking school. You have to learn what it’s like to work till 11 at night in a hot kitchen. ... You have to love it if you want to cook. You’re in from 8 in the morning to 10 at night. And,” he adds as an important rider, “your wife’s got to love you, too.”

He’s married to a graphic designer from near Urbana, Md., where they both now live. He cooks at home for her on Sundays sometimes, as well as on other days “if I get home early enough.” But they don’t share quite the same tastes. “I love seafood, my wife doesn’t,” he says. But like him, she appreciates the fruit and vegetables from the farm stands and orchards near where they live, as well as the items they manage to grow at home.

Voltaggio is a strong supporter of local farmers. Although his prime supply of produce comes from the Tuscarora Organic Growers Cooperative in Pennsylvania, he often shops at the Sunday farmers market in Dupont Circle.

“I want to support small farmers. The more people are aware of them, the less it costs to produce their food,” he says.

He also speaks admiringly of the Union Square farmers market in New York, which he discovered after graduating from cooking school, when he apprenticed at several Manhattan restaurants. From there he joined Palmer’s flagship establishment, Aureole, where, working at the fountainhead of the Charlie Palmer-owned restaurants and serving progressive American food, he found his niche.

At Aureole, Voltaggio worked his way through the ranks until he reached sous chef. He was away from the Washington area for six years, until Palmer picked him to head his first restaurant in the nation’s capital.

He is pleased to be home. Diners here are “very educated,” he says. “They’ve become a lot more excited in the last few years about food. They definitely ask where beef comes from.”

One item on his menu some diners might have questions about is a grilled beef filet mignon described as a “European cut.”

“It has the side muscle on,” he says. “It helps to baste the flesh. A lot of it is taken off in the U.S. — we have to explain it’s not a piece of gristle. I’m looking for more marbling, looking for flavor, looking for lean.”

He’s also having fun at the moment playing with some of the “molecular gastronomy” techniques that have been spearheaded by pioneer Ferran Adrià of El Bulli in Spain.
He’s toying with “airs,” lighter than foams, stabilized with the soy emulsifier lecithin. And he’s making edible spheres that burst with concentrated flavors or olive oil. But left to their own devices, he and his wife like to get back to basics. “There’s nothing better than a pitcher and crabs,” he says.

Charlie Palmer Steak (202-547-8100; http://www.charliepalmer.com/steak_dc) is located at 101 Constitution Ave. NW. Main courses cost $23 to $59.

This article by Julia Watson first appeared in the Northwest, Dupont, Foggy Bottom and Georgetown Current Newspapers. Photo by Ian Wegreich/The Current