April 22, 1979 marked not only the ninth annual Earth Day celebration, it was the day that Michael’s Santa Monica opened, ushering in a shift in popular food culture. Food was becoming increasingly creative and refined, and chefs were relying more on natural, fresh and local ingredients. Michael McCarty’restaurateur, host, chef, owner of the famed restaurant that bears his name just north of the Third Street Promenade’lives life to the fullest and urges those around him to do the same. I recently joined McCarty on his monthly ‘Michael’s Meet-Up’ tour of the Wednesday Santa Monica Farmers’ Market, a market that he had a great hand in forming, and it was the most inspiring morning I’ve had in quite some time. McCarty cheerfully greeted tour participants at the door of Michael’s, inviting us in and offering us Pellegrino and coffee, then laughing when we all opted for cappuccinos instead. Next came cinnamon rolls, his mother’s recipe from the 1950s, with huge pats of butter. He insisted everyone put the entire pat of butter on top of the icing. ’Live large,’ he says. ‘You don’t eat them every day.’ Next came blood-orange shots (restrato), which he insisted we drink alternately with our coffee, adding that Italians drink it all day long. Before touring the Santa Monica market, which McCarty says ‘set the tone for farmers markets,’ he provided a history of the market and food in modern times. Southern California is ‘ground zero of where stuff grows,’ McCarty says, making it easy to have a diet of fresh and varied foods. He notes that unlike other local markets, the Santa Monica market is ‘just beginning to get the proteins,’ such as oysters. He also explains how the process is quite rigorous to get into the market; gone are the days when people could buy stuff wholesale downtown, then come to the market and sell the goods. As we follow McCarty down the street to the market, like children following the Pied Piper, he continues educating the group. ‘There is always something new, and because of global warming,’ he laments, produce sometimes comes in earlier than it used to. He likes to ‘begin eating heirloom tomatoes in June and end with a BLT sandwich after Thanksgiving.’ He changes the menu at Michael’s every 90 days, always staying true to what’s in season, which he incorporates into his daily specials. McCarty is incredibly warm and personable, and greets everyone at the market like a close friend. He has the gift of making the person he’s speaking to feel like he or she is the most important person in the world at the moment, and gives people his undivided attention. When you’re with McCarty, you’re walking around with a movie star. He knows everyone, and everyone is glad to see him. He smiles, shakes hands and chats with his buddies, who happen to be other well-known chefs, restaurateurs and caterers. That day, we met a who’s-who of contemporary cuisine, including Josiah Citron of M’lisse, Bruce Marder of Capo and Jiraffe’s Raphael Lunetta. McCarty knows most all of the farmers and is on a first-name basis with them. Each has their specialty, he explains to the group. He is fond of Alex Weiser of Weiser Family Farms, whom McCarty credits with being the first guy to have lots of different kinds of potatoes all-year long. Any melon served at Michael’s during the summer comes from Weiser, who grows squash and radishes in the winter. For ‘carrots that look beautiful and taste great,’ McCarty opts for the certified organic McGrath Family Farm. All the citrus at Michael’s comes from Briar Patch, which also provides the restaurant with squash in the winter. Walking along, McCarty stops to greet Frieda Caplan, the woman who introduced kiwis to America’and named them, too. He likes Flora Bella, noting, ‘I never know what he will have,’ which can range from red onions and great lettuce to the ‘best green zebra heirloom tomatoes.’ He points out that Windrose Farm has 40 different types of heirloom tomatoes. Coleman Farms is McCarty’s ‘go-to-guy for herbs. Everything he grows is different.’ When asked to name his favorite vegetable, McCarty shakes his head and says it’s difficult to answer. When pressed he answers quickly, ‘Asparagus.’ He wonders aloud how one vendor can have rhubarb all year long, noting that the vegetable is in season now. Michael’s Chef John-Carlos Kuramoto joins us and buys berries from Pudwill Berry Farms, which McCarty declares are ‘the best.’ They sell blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, golden raspberries and wild strawberries. McCarty is adamant about not putting berries in salads, serving them only for dessert, perhaps with ice cream or sorbet and a piece of chocolate. He buys Persian mulberries, the first of the season, for the group to try. They look like a fuzzy worm, and are not sweet yet, but he likes them for berry compotes. And as a reminder of the hardships farmers face and how they have no control over the weather, one farmer tells McCarty about a heat wave the previous week that ruined his mushrooms that should have been for sale this day. With the season for blood oranges coming to an end, Kuramoto bought some. When we returned to the restaurant, he disappeared into the kitchen and whipped up fennel pot de cr’me with blood orange and basil whipped cream, accompanied by blood-orange segments. McCarty likes the combination of fennel and blood orange. Sitting outside, while waiting for the chef’s creations, which also included seared Maine day-boat scallops with shaved fennel and dill salad, fennel beurre and blanc blood-orange reduction, McCarty regales us with more tales of his life. He hails from Briarcliff Manor, New York, where his parents always threw great parties with interesting people. McCarty spent his junior year of high school in France, where he admired how the people enjoyed life, danced, ate and partied. After his family moved to Illinois when he was a teenager, McCarty worked at The Mayflower restaurant in Rockford, calling it the ‘best-run restaurant I have ever seen,’ also mentioning that it was managed by the mob. In 1972, after a year at the University of Colorado, McCarty returned to France to study wines, cooking and management at the Cordon Bleu, the Acad’mie du Vin and ‘cole H’teli’re de Paris. In 1974, he returned to Colorado where he received his bachelor of arts in the art and business of gastronomy from the University of Colorado. ’I never wanted to be a chef in the kitchen,’ McCarty says. ‘I wanted to be outside, talking to people.’ He was only 25 when Michael’s opened, and he divided his time between kitchen and host duties. McCarty explains how nouvelle cuisine changed the way food was prepared. ‘Before, you cooked French food exactly how you were taught,’ and every restaurant in every city in every country would prepare the food exactly the same. Michael’s featured a French menu when it opened, but McCarty changed it after six months. He credits young Hollywood and dual-income families with the restaurant’s early success, as well as the perfect alignment of journalists, consumers and food producers. Arriving in Los Angeles in the mid-1970s, McCarty opened a duck farm, and about 50 chefs across the country became customers. In 1989, he decided to plant a vineyard. Today, The Malibu Vineyard produces 200 cases a year of Rambla Pacifico Pinot Noir, which he leaves in barrels for three years, considered a long time. It sells in five stores, including Gelson’s, and the picture on the label is McCarty from the back. Michael’s was, and remains, a magnet for talented chefs. ‘Chefs worked five or more years and then they left and opened their own place, or went to good places,’ McCarty says, a sense of pride in his voice. Ken Frank (La Toque) and Nancy Silverton (La Brea Bakery) began at Michael’s. As the morning winds down, and Chef Kuramoto’s delectable dishes (which were paired with two different wines specifically selected to go with them) disappear from the plates, McCarty’s rapt audience begins to depart, clutching autographed copies of his book, ‘Welcome to Michael’s: Great Food, Great People, Great Party!’ After spending a few hours with McCarty, I could see he has a passion for his work and was lucky to find it early on. He loves food’talking about it, eating it, teaching how to best prepare it. He credits his parents with helping to fuel this passion. With just two restaurants (Michael’s New York opened in 1989), McCarty can keep a strong presence in both. He and his artist wife, Kim, divide their time between the two cities. Their daughter Clancy lives in New York, and works at the Every Mother Counts foundation, while son Chas is working on a writing career in Los Angeles. Living large himself, McCarty implores people to enjoy themselves and ‘get what you like!’ Michael’s Meet-Up is $75 per person and includes a copy of his book. For more information, call (310) 451-0843 or visit michaelssantamonica.com.
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