Michael Matarazzo is a name that resonates throughout the private club industry. As Executive Chef at Farmington Country Club in Charlottesville, Va., he’s become one of the most sought-after voices in culinary leadership—a coordinator and speaker for the Chef to Chef Conference, a mentor cited by numerous rising chefs in C+RC’s annual 40 Under 40 awards, and a go-to expert featured countless times for his insights on kitchen culture and team development.
When Matarazzo speaks on leadership, the industry listens. And his philosophy is straightforward: Trust your team.
Matarazzo focuses on what his team members’ strengths are and creates a culture in which those strengths can flourish by allowing them to write the menu and trusting them to do what he hired them to do. He makes sure his kitchen is one built around camaraderie and positivity.
He touches on these points, and more, in this exclusive interview.
Club + Resort Chef (C+RC): What attracted you to Farmington Country Club?
Michael Matarazzo (MM): I think I was ready for a change. In 2010, I had left the private club scene briefly to work at a property in New York called Bear Mountain Inn for about four and a half years, and I missed it.
We have a lot more resources in clubs, and it’s more focused on members and service. They’re paying their dues, so you have to innovate and wow them year over year, which makes for a lot of fun as a chef.
C+RC: How did you take that experience and apply it to your position now?
MM: Farmington came on my radar from a friend, Kevin Walker, CMC. He knew I was looking, and he previously worked with my General Manager when they were at Cherokee Town and Country Club [in Atlanta] and knew he was looking for a Chef at Farmington. So, he asked me if I wanted to throw my hat in the ring.
When I met Joseph Krenn, [CCM, CCE] the General Manager at Farmington CC, and the whole leadership team, it felt different than any other interview I’d been on. They were saying certain things that were a little bit hard to believe at first, but there was a certain level of trust that just felt right. Fortunately for me, that instinct has been accurate to this point. I’ve been here 11 years now.
C+RC: What’s your culinary approach at Farmington Country Club? Has it changed a lot in the past years? If so, how?
MM: Yes, quite a bit. And not just culinary, but also from a leadership perspective. When you live at the same property through COVID, you really have no choice but to shift a little bit.
Dining habits have changed a lot. I think people got really comfortable with takeout during COVID and have incorporated that as a new habit or lifestyle. So that part of the business has grown a lot. I think the grab-and-go component is still growing in a lot of clubs.
Cuisine-wise, I do things a little bit non-traditionally, where I empower my sous chefs and the leaders who work under me. Restaurant chefs write the menu. I don’t write them nor dictate what they should be. They send them up to me, I proofread them, I’ll be at the menu tasting, and that is usually when I am seeing the dish for the first time.
I think this allows us to evolve our cuisine here without me having to be the one to spin my wheels because after a while, especially at the same property, it gets harder and harder to come up with new and different items.
When I get new people on my team, and they’re from New Orleans, [for example], I’ll say, “You know way more about New Orleans food than I do. Let’s do some cool stuff.”
We learn from each other and all grow that way. I think it’s evolved in step with the team and new team members culturally. It’s organic, but it’s something that we allow to happen because it keeps things fresh.
We have a very high retention rate on our leadership team, and I think a big part of that is that I let them do what I hired them to do. Plus, they get to be creative and express themselves through food.
C+RC: How would you define best practices in club kitchens, and what specific best practices do you and your team follow? How do you make sure they’re following these best practices?
MM: The biggest key element, especially when you’re new to a team, is building the right team for the culture you want to create. With having so many creative people under one roof and in the same kitchen, things can get interesting. It’s important that the personalities mesh well.
I could interview somebody for a [line] cook or sous chef position who has a lot of talent and an impressive resume, but if they don’t have the right attitude or I get the sense that they’re going to bring a certain level of toxicity to the kitchen, [I won’t hire them].
I would much rather have somebody with way less experience who we can teach,, if they have a great positive attitude.
Regarding best practices, that encompasses so many categories.
There are a lot of stereotypes—that exist for a reason—around chefs being high-tempered, moody, and screaming and yelling all the time. But what I’ve realized is that we need more self-awareness.
I spoke at the Chef to Chef Conference in 2019, and on the screen behind me, I showed an Instagram photo of a chef sitting on a milk crate eating a sandwich. Then I pulled up the comments, and it was all these chefs celebrating that scenario.
This, and more personal experiences, prompted me to become a certified life coach, certified leadership coach, and I started a podcast kind of addressing these issues. We need to change the narrative of what a chef is.
My biggest jobs are providing the resources that my team needs to do the job that I expect them to do and to create an environment that they want to come back to. And that doesn’t happen from yelling and bad treatment.
C+RC: When you hire new people, how do you mentor them to create this environment and change that narrative?
MM: COVID was a big push for me to become a certified life coach. I could have used my extra time during COVID to do food research, but we don’t need more of that right now. The whole world was spiraling. I feel like my team needs something different than just more food stuff.
How can I best be there for them and support them? I would never take one of my employees on as a client, but I use my coaching training to talk to them, connect with them, and help them through things.
When my employees come to me and ask how to better balance work and their home life, I carve out an hour or however long of my time to sit down with them and help talk through whatever it is they might be struggling with.
Managing emotions is one of our biggest tasks.
C+RC: How many people are you responsible for?
MM: Close to 70 people with the warewashing team and the purchasing team during peak season.
C+RC: How important is it for other chefs to communicate with one another? What’s the importance of forming that community?
MM: I think it’s huge. If you look at any situation in your life that could be relatable to a larger population of people, it’s always made easier by surrounding yourself with those people.
Whatever you’re going through, if you find a group, organization, or a population of people in your area who also are going through that, it helps.
The more we can talk to each other, the more likely it is that somebody in the room is going to raise their hand and say, “Yep, I am in the same boat.” And that always makes things easier.
C+RC: What advice would you offer someone who wants to get into a private club chef role or is just starting in their career?
MM: Whatever scenario excites you the most when you think about it, that’s the right answer. If you’re always chasing and pursuing excitement, you can’t be on the wrong path.
