Jan 7

Jan 7 BABE #336: OUITA MICHEL - Owner, Ouita Michel Family of Restaurants

Ouita spent most of her childhood in the kitchen. For her, cooking was a way of life, a way to connect with her family, and her truest passion. It wasn’t, however, the career path she had in mind. She initially set out to pursue law school in the big apple, but life had other plans. Instead of hitting the books, she took a restaurant job and was hooked the moment she stepped into the kitchen. Today, Ouita is a chef and owner of Ouita Michel Family of Restaurants, boasting eight restaurants and two large catering venues. To say she’s a powerhouse in the culinary industry is an understatement. She’s talented, resilient and far too humble, and we’re honored to share her story.

The Basics:

Hometown: Thermopolis, Wyoming
Current city: Midway, Kentucky
Alma mater: University of Kentucky; Culinary Institute of America
Degree: Political science
Very first job: Babysitting—but by 14 I worked in a coffee shop making espresso
Hustle: Owner, Ouita Michel Family of Restaurants

The Interests:

Babe you admire and why?
Oh gosh, there are so many babes. Michelle Obama if you're thinking global; in my life and in my work, I would say I'm very inspired by Alice Waters nationally and, more regionally, Ashley Christensen in North Carolina. (She just got the chef of the year award at the James Beard Awards, and I’m very inspired by what she does.) Locally in my daily life, I work with great women in our company, so I would say Leslee Macpherson. She's younger than me, but she's kicking ass and taking names. She's our new director of operations for all of our restaurants.

How do you spend your free time?
I love traveling and exploring places I haven't been. I live in a small town closer to Lexington, so even if it's just driving to Louisville and then walking across the footbridge over to Indiana, or going to the falls in Ohio and hiking around, or going to the Gorge and hiking, I like urban and natural environments.

What would you eat for your very last meal?
You can't ask a chef that! Oh gosh, it's so hard to narrow down. I would have to say it would probably be my mother's blackberry cobbler, because I'd go for memory foods and I want to be in an emotional place, a positive place. I would probably also want to eat eggplant caviar.

What’s something most don’t know about you?
I didn't get my driver's license until I was 45 years old. I moved from Lexington, Kentucky to New York City just after graduating from college, so I didn't need it there.

The Hustle:

Tell us about your hustle.
I’ve been a chef for 35 years and I own Ouita Michel Family of Restaurants where we have 10 different locations: eight restaurants and then two big catering venues. I'm also the chef-in-residence for Woodford Reserve Distillery where I handle all of the food services. We also handle a big facility that does horse auctions outside Lexington—we do all their catering and handle all their horse sales, too. We have a bakery as well! My basic everyday job is to support all of the people on our management team who run all the different locations. I do a lot of menu development, a lot of local sourcing. All of our restaurants are farm-to-table, so it's a lot to make sure we've got all that local meat coming into the restaurants and the supply chains are all good.

What does your typical workday look like?
My daughter is 15, so I get up at 6:00 and I try to get her ass out of bed. I typically get her out the door around 7:00, and then I do all my communications from about 7-8 before getting in a little exercise for 30 minutes. Then, I usually go from restaurant to restaurant, depending on the day. A lot of times I deliver some of our baked goods to the different restaurants. I'll check in with each management team, and if there’s a special event I do a lot of cooking. I try to stay really connected to my cooking—when you have so much administrative work, you forget why you do it. It's the joy of cooking that I really love. I don't work on the line in any of our kitchens, but I do do all of the mini development and a lot of the cooking for big special events. Then, I go into one of my restaurants—usually it's Holly Hill Inn. Last night I left the restaurant at about 10:00 p.m., though not every day is that long.

Have you always had a passion for cooking?
I have always loved to cook. My mom and grandmother were fantastic cooks, and when I was a kid, there was no cable television, or computers, or iPhones, or anything like that. At that time it was expected that you would eat dinner at a certain time and be at the table together as a family. I started cooking at a very young age. Then, I went to college at the University of Kentucky and I was planning on going to law school. I didn't really think of being a chef as a profession, I just loved cooking. I moved to New York City, opened up the New York Times and got a job in a restaurant instead of going to law school. My dad wasn't too happy, but I just loved the kitchen. I liked the diversity of it and all the different people who worked in a kitchen, and I felt more connected and alive in the kitchen. I still feel that way. I was 21, had just graduated from college, and nobody would hire me, because I had no restaurant experience. But I got a job at a macrobiotic restaurant, and within the first week, Bill Murray and his wife came in and ate dinner. He came back into the kitchen and was, like, cutting up with me, and I thought I had died. I worked with people from all over the world in that kitchen. It was fascinating. It felt like another planet. That's really what I was looking for.

Where do you get inspiration for new dishes?
A lot of my inspiration comes from what's locally raised in Kentucky, because I try to truly express my sense of Kentucky cuisine and the rural environment I live in. At the Holly Hill Inn, we use poetry as menu inspiration. Kentucky is famous for its poetry and its poets. I get inspiration from a wide variety of places, but I love reading and I love ethnic cuisine too. A lot of what I find inspiring right now is this merge between Indian food and Southern food. It's really fascinating.

What’s your process for managing and maintaining operations effectively?
At first it was just my husband and I; we were running five restaurants, and it was very hard. It sucked, plain and simple, because we went to chef school. We didn't come at this from an MBA perspective, we came at it from a Culinary Institute of America perspective. In the last three years, we've opened three big businesses: two big restaurants and a catering operation. In order to expand, we hired a consultant to help us with the back-end and assess where we need to be as a company in order to handle the growth. As a result of that advice, we hired a director of operations; a person who had a lot of experience in running multiple, big restaurant locations.

What’s been your biggest career milestone?
We just finished completing our expansion plan and opened our last restaurant. It's not a year old yet, and I felt like that was a huge milestone for me. Also, two years ago I was nominated for best restauranteur for the James Beard Awards. I didn't win, but to come from Midway, Kentucky and be nominated for a national award—it didn't even dawn on me that day, because my mind was like, OK, did the dishwasher show up [for work tonight]? I really consider that a milestone, big time, because it's hard if you're from a small market. You're hardly ever chosen because it's all based on votes, and if you're not in a large urban area, it’s very hard. I don't care if I win. I just feel super excited about being a part of that. I got to go to the James Beard Boot Camp, which was wonderful.

How has being a woman affected your professional experience?
Coming up in the kitchens in the 80s and 90s as a woman, I did feel like we got overlooked. I don't think that's true anymore for young women coming up now; I feel like they're a lot more visible. But when I was coming up, there were no woman-chefs in the media. There was no “Top Chef,” and then “Top Chef” was male-dominated for the first, what, 15 seasons? But I feel now there's this huge push, and I love it. Unfortunately, for me, it's kind of past my time a little bit. But all the younger ones who are working in our company, I feel so happy for them. I try to hire as many women as I can and I make sure my payroll is equitable. I think that's what it takes. We have to have more and more women owning and operating their own businesses. Support the other women in your industry and realize you're not in competition, but you're a collaborator.

Career and/or life advice for other babes?
I feel like people underestimate me in business, sometimes, because when I'm in a business setting and I'm working with purveyors or I'm working with a banker, I have a casual look because I'm in and out of my restaurants all day long. Jeans and a nice shirt. When you dress like that, people think you don't have the business savvy you need, so I'm very direct—maybe sometimes too direct, but I feel like women need to really practice that, right? Saying exactly what it is they want and expect and being assertive, in a nice way. Just know, this is what I want, this is where I want to go, and just don’t doubt your intuition. The times I've doubted my intuition have not served me well. When I knew something was supposed to be right, I should've gone that direction. The older you get, the easier it is to just say: “Yeah, whatever, dude. I'm doing it my way.”