This week, chef Michael Symon chats with Jaymee about his culinary career in Cleveland and how the food scene has evolved over the past two decades. He talks about how the various European influences of his childhood shaped him as a chef and the first thing he learned to make. Michael explains his “meat-centric” style of cooking, why pork is his favorite protein, and how to cook absolutely anything on the grill. Plus, Michael dishes about filming BBQ Brawl with best friend Bobby Flay, and his strategy for making a comeback after last season’s disappointing loss.
This week, chef Michael Symon chats with Jaymee about his culinary career in Cleveland and how the food scene has evolved over the past two decades. He talks about how the various European influences of his childhood shaped him as a chef and the first thing he learned to make. Michael explains his “meat-centric” style of cooking, why pork is his favorite protein, and how to cook absolutely anything on the grill. Plus, Michael dishes about filming BBQ Brawl with best friend Bobby Flay, and his strategy for making a comeback after last season’s disappointing loss.
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Find episode transcript here: https://food-network-obsessed.simplecast.com/episodes/michael-symon-on-the-browns-bbq-brawl-bff-bobby-flay
[MUSIC PLAYING] JAYMEE SIRE: Happy Friday, foodies, and welcome to Food Network Obsessed. This is the podcast where we dish on all things Food Network with your favorite Food Network stars. I'm your host Jaymee Sire, and today, we are chatting with someone from the Food Network family who you know and love dearly.
For years, he has shared his exuberant, approachable cooking style and infectious laugh. I am so excited to have him on today because we talk about his Food Network shows, starting his culinary career in Cleveland, his love for the Browns, and his meat-centric style of cooking. He is an award-winning chef, restaurateur, cookbook author, Bobby Flay's BFF, and a returning mentor on BBQ Brawl. Please welcome Michael Symon.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Michael, welcome to the podcast. You and I first met on the set of Iron Chef Showdown. And I have to say, you were probably the most relaxed Iron Chef on the show. You always seem to be having a good time. Have you always been that way in the kitchen?
MICHAEL SYMON: Yeah. You know what, I love what I do, and it makes it just really easy to have fun while I'm doing it. Sometimes, I think people confuse my happiness with lack of competitiveness. But my whole childhood and everything else, I was heavily involved in sports, so I always found that kind of a more calm I could make myself, the better I am in that world.
JAYMEE SIRE: All right. Well, let's go back to childhood. Let's go back to early, early days, because you've been in the game nearly 30 years. You attended the Culinary Institute back in 1990. How did you decide on that path for yourself?
MICHAEL SYMON: Well, I started culinary in-- I graduated in early '90. I started in '88. And for me, a lot of it was another path that I needed to find. I was a pretty good high school athlete. I wrestled in high school and had a really severe injury my junior year.
I broke my arm. I had a plate, 14 screws, dislocated elbow, compound fracture to the other bone. And I'd been wrestling since I've been eight years old and was going to go to college with scholarship for wrestling. And then, I tried to come back my senior year and rebroke my arm.
So I had to start working to help pay for school. I came from a middle class family. My dad worked at Ford. And I started working in restaurants and just fell in love with it. I was never a great student. So I asked my dad if I could go to culinary school, and he said absolutely not, get an education.
Culinary school was thought of differently back then. There was no Food Network. You weren't going to be a celebrity chef.
You're being a tradesman, which is just fine. I still think of myself that way. And so he made me go to college, and I went to Cleveland State for a semester and got a 0.2, not a 2.0, a 0.2.
JAYMEE SIRE: That's impressive. I feel like that's kind of hard to do.
MICHAEL SYMON: It was. It wasn't easy. I worked very hard at it. I have a Greek and Sicilian mother, so she kind of got involved. And everyone's afraid of her even though she's 4'10" and 95 pounds soaking wet. So she-- we'll just call it convinced-- my father to let me go to culinary school, and that was that, off to the races.
JAYMEE SIRE: Well, that's a great story. And you mentioned your background with Greek, Sicilian, also Eastern European. How have all of those influences really helped shape the chef that you are today?
MICHAEL SYMON: It was huge. My mom was a tremendous influence on foods that I loved. My dad was a good cook too, but she did a lot of the cooking growing up. So we ate a lot of Greek and Italian food as a kid.
And then, my dad's father, my Pap, who fortunately I had in my life until he was 102 years old, was an amazing cook, and that's where I learned all that Eastern European stuff, because Cleveland is a very Eastern Euro town. So that's where the influence of the pierogi and the kielbasa and the smoked meats and all those things came in. My father worked midnights when I was a kid, so I used to always spend essentially Fridays, the weekends with my grandparents.
And my grandfather would bring me down to the West Side Market. We'd shop for the meats, and then we'd pick up my grandmother at Higby's. And we would go back home, and we'd cook. And so that's kind of where my love of the sauerkraut, the smoked meats, and the very kind of meat-centric cooking that I do was very much driven by my Pap.
JAYMEE SIRE: Do you remember the first thing that you actually learned to make yourself?
MICHAEL SYMON: Yup, my mother's baklava. She didn't really start me off easy. It's still one of the hardest things. Here I am, 52 years old. It's still one of the hardest things to make. I'm like, mom, maybe we should have started off with like butter and noodles or something.
JAYMEE SIRE: She threw you right in the fire.
MICHAEL SYMON: Yeah, right under the bus.
JAYMEE SIRE: What makes her baklava so special?
MICHAEL SYMON: One, she butters between every layer, which is huge. And the other thing is, it's obviously a nut and honey-based dessert, but she does this trick where, when she grinds up the pistachios and the walnuts, she also-- there used to be this kid's cookie called schwebel. And she used to grind that up and put it in there. But now that she can't find it anymore, so she used graham crackers. And it's like a quarter graham cracker.
So it makes the nut mixture hold together better, and it pulls a little bit of the sweetness out. And there's never been a human on Earth that has tasted her baklava and not said it's the best they've ever had, ever. Even when you give it to another Greek, they're like, OK, angel wins.
JAYMEE SIRE: I mean, it sounds delightful. And hopefully, I can have a chance to try that someday. I'm just inviting myself over, by the way.
MICHAEL SYMON: Or I could send you some.
JAYMEE SIRE: OK.
MICHAEL SYMON: She always has a stash, which is good. I was just over her house yesterday, and I stole some right out of the freezer. She always has them in the freezer in little Ziploc bag. I go down. I steal some. I head out.
JAYMEE SIRE: I love that, emergency supply of baklava at all times. Well, you were born and raised in Cleveland, started your career there, largely credited with saving the restaurant scene in downtown Cleveland. And as many fans know and as this former sportscaster knows, huge Cleveland sports fan as well, so who's going to be the next Cleveland team to bring home a title, you think?
MICHAEL SYMON: Oh, it's going to be the Browns. I mean, for sure. I mean, I'm Cleveland until I die. I mean, I'm in New York a lot now, and I'm currently home in Cleveland, but a diehard Cleveland sports fan. The Browns are going to bring-- in Baker, I trust.
JAYMEE SIRE: You do? You're a big Baker guy?
MICHAEL SYMON: Oh, yeah.
JAYMEE SIRE: OK.
MICHAEL SYMON: Baker is going to bring us the title.
JAYMEE SIRE: All right, all right. Everybody, mark it on the board.
MICHAEL SYMON: Book it, book it.
JAYMEE SIRE: We'll play this clip back.
MICHAEL SYMON: I'm guaranteeing it.
JAYMEE SIRE: Oh, OK, wow. All right, even better, even better. Now, you opened your first restaurant there, Lola, in 1997. Knowing what you know now about opening restaurants, the entire industry, what advice would you give yourself back then?
MICHAEL SYMON: Well, I would say my dad was right. I should have went to college.
[LAUGHTER]
No, I'm teasing, obviously. But I don't know. My wife Liz and I opened our first restaurant in '97, and the beauty of it I think is we had nothing. So we had no fear, which I think is what made it such a great restaurant.
I mean, I learned a lot along the way, how to do things better and smarter, and this and that. But I think what made Lola so special was truly our-- I mean, I was-- I want to say 26 or 27. We had run other people's restaurants.
Liz ran the front and was a somm, and I was a chef. But the rest of it, we didn't know as much about as we thought. So I think our lack of knowledge and passion and vigor and, really, fearlessness about making a mistake served us really well because we just did what we wanted. We never said, let's put this dish on the menu. Oh, do you think people will like this? Or when Liz was designing it, is this too eclectic for Cleveland?
We didn't limit ourselves. We just did what we loved and did what we wanted to do, and people responded to it. So I think there's a lot to be learned by that. Sometimes, you just got to go for it. And when we were, for lack of other terms, young and dumb, going for it was very easy.
JAYMEE SIRE: Yeah. I mean, what you didn't know couldn't hurt you at the time, I guess.
MICHAEL SYMON: Exactly.
JAYMEE SIRE: How did you guys meet? It was in the business, right?
MICHAEL SYMON: Yeah, we met in 1990 at a restaurant in Cleveland called Players. It was a little high-end Italian restaurant, and she ran the front. And I was actually hired as a cook. So as I tell everybody, it was terrific training for marriage. Because when I met Liz in 1990, she was technically my boss, and here I am, 31 years later, and she's still my boss.
JAYMEE SIRE: She's your boss. Absolutely. Spoken like a very smart, happily married husband.
MICHAEL SYMON: Yes.
JAYMEE SIRE: No, that's great. I want to talk more just about your restaurants and your progression. First of all, Lola, the name Lola, who is Lola in your life?
MICHAEL SYMON: We named Lola after my aunt who is-- she-- just loaded with charisma, very outgoing, life of the party, was one of my favorite people growing up as a kid. So the combination of just her personality, and we'd love the name so much, it was a no-brainer for us.
We wanted a name, a female name. Initially, my nickname for Liz is Lulu. Originally, we were going to call it Lulu, but there was a very famous restaurant called Lulu in California at the time. And then, so we called it Lola because we love my aunt Lola.
JAYMEE SIRE: Was the restaurant the life of the party as well?
MICHAEL SYMON: Yeah, it was. I mean, especially when we first start-- the original Lola was only 48 seats. And again, we were younger, so we would stay open till 2 o'clock every morning and all the restaurant trade would come there to eat. So yeah, it was a pretty bumping little place back then. And then as we started getting older, we're like, maybe 11 o'clock is when we should close. But those first 5 to 10 years were really fun.
JAYMEE SIRE: Do you remember your first well-known or famous customer?
MICHAEL SYMON: I do. Lola was very interesting, because when you would go to the-- we played loud music, and it was dark, and we would get this very interesting mix of young people and then older people that heard about it, or wanted to try food. And when I say older, they're probably like my age now, but--
JAYMEE SIRE: Seems so old at that time, right?
MICHAEL SYMON: I know, but I remember the second-- Liz and I are both are very into music, so we knew a lot of people in the music scene in Cleveland. And probably the second week we were open, at one table was Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. And sitting right next to him was Dick Jacobs who owned the Cleveland Indians, who was like older in like a powder blue suit. And then Trent was Trent.
And I'm like this is everything I want this restaurant to be. We have the owner of the Indians, we have one of Cleveland's biggest rock stars sitting right next to each other having a conversation and both so happy. This is everything that I want. And then a week right after that-- we were only open for dinner back then, and I was prepping in the morning, and I look and there's someone knocking at the door. And I'm walking towards the door, and I'm like, oh my God, it's Sammy Hagar.
JAYMEE SIRE: Wow.
MICHAEL SYMON: So I answer the door, and he's like, hey man, I know you guys just opened . I didn't know you weren't open for lunch Trent Reznor told me that this is the place I got to eat in Cleveland. He's like, hi, I'm Sammy Hagar.
JAYMEE SIRE: You're like, I know.
MICHAEL SYMON: Now, I was a Van Halen fanatic, still am. So I was like, I'm fully aware who you are. And he goes, is Michael here? I'm like, I'm Michael. He goes, I'll come back for dinner. I'm like, sit down. I'll cook you lunch. So he comes in, I cook him lunch, we've been buddies ever since. We've been friends ever since then, but those were the first three. it was Trent, and Dick Jacobs, the owner of the Indians, and then Sam.
JAYMEE SIRE: That's a great story. Die more athletes-- I mean, being such a big sports fan, did more athletes start to find their way to the restaurants as well?
MICHAEL SYMON: Yeah, we got a lot of athletes. I mean, LeBron had always been a great supporter of ours through and through. Whoever was the quarterback of the Browns at the time was always very supportive. We've gotten most of the athletes come through, and a lot of-- Mike Fratello, who used to coach the Cavs and still lives in Cleveland to this day, he used to always bring in all the coaches. And when the Indians would play the Yankees, the managers at the time of the Indians were big fans of ours and the owners of the Indians.
So Billy Crystal used to come in. And whenever there was all that big playoff series atmosphere and the stars from different parts of the country would come in, we would always get them, which was great.
JAYMEE SIRE: You have opened such a large variety of restaurants in your career. What do you love about opening restaurants and just that lifestyle?
MICHAEL SYMON: It's a tremendous rush. I mean, opening the restaurants is a tremendous rush. We get to do it together. My favorite thing is training the staff and watching when they have that a-ha moment like, oh, this is what-- oh my God, I got it. I understand now. Regardless of the concept, whether it's very high-end fine dining, or barbecue, or burgers, it's like once they understand what you're trying to accomplish, it makes it much, much easier.
And then the other thing is, I mean, we've had to close restaurants in the past year because of the pandemic and everything else, but we've had staff that's worked with us forever and ever and ever. And like my culinary director, Katie Pickens, has been with me since she's been I think 19 years old for 17 years. She's 36 now, and she runs the culinary part of our business.
JAYMEE SIRE: How has the Cleveland food scene changed since then?
MICHAEL SYMON: It's exploded. I mean, in '97 there just weren't as many options. There were good restaurants, and good chefs, and people working really hard, but now there's a lot more depth. And it's been really fun to watch the growth and to watch people that have worked with us and for us go on to do their own things, and open their own restaurants, and have success.
I always say you're as good of a teacher and as strong as your family tree is, and I'm very proud of our tree.
JAYMEE SIRE: Yeah. I mean, you and Liz, you're partners in all senses of the word, life and business. But what are some of the challenges of being in business with your significant other?
MICHAEL SYMON: It's actually easy. People always say, oh my God, you guys do restaurants together, now you do some TV stuff together. Why? I'm like that's easy. When we would get to the restaurant, I'd go in the kitchen, she'd go in the front. There was a very--
JAYMEE SIRE: There's a line.
MICHAEL SYMON: Yeah. And even when we do Symon's Dinners together, it's like she's going to basically do pastries and cocktails, and I'm going to do savory. And, I mean, we obviously talk about everything and interact about everything, but now in being together over 30 years, we understand our roles at home too. But it was like in the early years, they weren't as easy to figure out as the restaurant was.
JAYMEE SIRE: You guys have seemed to figure it out pretty well. And speaking of Symon's Dinners, I mean, you guys have self shot and produced dozens of these Facebook Live videos, which has evolved into an actual TV show as well. Give us the backstory of how that all came to be.
MICHAEL SYMON: I got to say it's probably the most fun I've ever had doing television, and that's in respect to every other thing I've ever done. So I was driving to Manhattan from Long Island to shoot at Food Network, and I got through the bridge-- I'm sorry, through the tunnel, and I get a text, the Food Network closed, the city's shutting down, we're closing. I'm like, oh my God. So I go have an espresso at my apartment, get back in the car, and I'm driving back with Olivia, Liv who does Symon's Dinners with us.
And before I get in the car, I sent a note to David Zasloff and I said, look, I don't know what is going to happen with this. I'm going back to my house in Long Island. I have my social media director with me who shoots all my stuff for social. We could create content if you guys want and need content, because everything is shut down. By the time we got back to Long Island, he had put me on a chain email like a group email, and literally I think three days after that, we started shooting Symon's Dinners for Facebook Live.
We did, I want to say 45 or 50 of them, straight days, literally the first basically 50 days of the shutdown. And it got like 35 million views, or 40 million views, like an insane amount of traffic.
JAYMEE SIRE: Wow.
MICHAEL SYMON: And then they turned it into a show in the kitchen block on the weekends. So we still shoot it at home, Liv still shoots the majority of the show on her iPhone. Now we set up like two GoPros and a wide shot with the camera, but there's no camera man or camera woman. There's Liv with her iPhone. She gets the majority of the shots, and we get a wide, and set up the two GoPros. And we basically shoot live to tape. I mean, there's a little editing, but it's as close to that Facebook Live situation I think you can get for a cooking show.
I mean, fortunately I've been cooking most of my life, so I don't need that whole-- like I just cook, I don't really need the swap out situation. I'm just like let's go. All right, let's go. And when it's a longer cook, we just pause and then we get back into it. So it's fun to do because I feel like I'm just really-- we're cooking and we're teaching people.
JAYMEE SIRE: Yeah.
MICHAEL SYMON: And Liv, Olivia, is only 28. So the questions that she asks during the show I feel are the questions that a lot of home cooks have. Listen, I don't have those questions. We've been working in restaurants our whole lives. So a lot of things that seem like, oh, everybody knows this, and then Liv asks questions, I'm like, how would you know that? She's like nobody knows that. No one knows what you're talking about. So I think that that's what makes it, like the combination of those things is what makes it very relatable to people.
JAYMEE SIRE: Yeah. I think it resonated with a lot of people, especially during that first two months or whatever it was.
MICHAEL SYMON: It was like that half hour to an hour a day, depending on what we did, where people are just like, OK, I'm going to forget about all this stuff, and I'm just going to have fun. And we were literally going, I'm sure you remember, it's like that was the time when you go to the grocery store and you're like nothing is there. So it was like, we were shopping like everybody else was shopping. It was like, OK, today we have two cans of beans, some ham, and I'm going to make dinner. And I just think that just connected with people.
JAYMEE SIRE: Up next we get into the real meat of the conversation. That's right, we're talking all about barbecue when we come back. Yeah, and now like you said, it's evolved into Symon's Dinners. We see you utilizing the grill for a lot of things that are traditionally made on the stove or oven. A pot of rice, chicken pot pie, meatballs, bagels. What would you say to people to maybe inspire them to experiment a little bit more with the grill, especially during these summer months?
MICHAEL SYMON: Well, I just love being outside, and I think the clean up is easier outside.
JAYMEE SIRE: Yup.
MICHAEL SYMON: So over-- and I've learned this from my grandfather and my father. It's like look, what I always try to teach people is anything you could do inside, you could do outside. Anything you could do outside, you could do inside for the most part. And as soon as you put the lid down on your grill, it's an oven. It's an oven. So if you cook like I cook with charcoal-- but if you have a gas grill once, you figure out how to control the heat when you put the lid down, you just watch the temp gauge. If you want to bake something at 350, wait until it gets at 350 and adjust it to that rate. There's nothing that anyone can make inside on a soap opera and oven that I can't make on the grill, and that's what I try to show people.
JAYMEE SIRE: Yeah, I mean--
MICHAEL SYMON: So just have fun with it.
JAYMEE SIRE: You do have a lot of the toys, the bells and whistles in the backyard setup. You've got the smoker, the green egg, the charcoal grill--
MICHAEL SYMON: I do, but 90% of what I do on Symon's Dinners is with a Weber potbelly grill.
JAYMEE SIRE: All right. Is that what you would recommend to maybe like a first-time griller to purchase.
MICHAEL SYMON: 100%. 100%. Look, I got a big 8-foot Mill Scale smoker, and I love it. And Liz can't stand it. She looks at this big piece of steel in our backyard, she's like are you kidding me? But still most of my day-- that's what I use if I'm making a brisket or whatever, but most of my day to day cooking I do on the same grill that I grew up with. It's a little black 23 inch, mine is, potbelly Weber. You could go to any hardware store and pick one up for under $100. And that's where I do most of my cooking. I think it's the most inexpensive versatile tool you could get for outside.
JAYMEE SIRE: Just goes back to basics, right?
MICHAEL SYMON: Yup. Yeah, I'm a less is more kind of cook.
JAYMEE SIRE: Well, you describe your personal cooking style as meat-centric, which for a girl over here who grew up on a cattle farm in Montana speaks to me on a number of levels, but can you elaborate on how your culinary point of view evolved into that, or maybe it was always that.
MICHAEL SYMON: It was always-- I mean, you grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, fish isn't a thing. I mean, there's walleye and perch in those seasons. But even though I had a Greek mother who loved cooking fish, I didn't grow up with a ton of seafood in my life. So we grew up eating a lot of meat. And we would do the whole lamb on spits and all that kind of stuff as a kid. I was just always so intrigued by it, and I was always intrigued by live fire and meat as a kid.
And then you once I went to culinary school and started working in restaurants, you want to focus on what you enjoy doing the most, and those were the things I enjoyed doing the most, and I also thought that they tasted the best so. Now, I do cook with a ton of vegetables too Because, I mean, Liz was a vegetarian for 25 years, so my vegetable game had to be strong.
So for me I'm very vegetable-centric and then meat-centric. Like if I have a starch, it's more like I make myself a pasta and I have a pasta. But if I'm doing an entree, I'm not one of those chefs-- you'll very rarely see meat and a big potato, or meat and rice. It's always like meat and veg. And probably a lot of that has evolved into that because of how I was raised and then being with a vegetarian for over half my life.
JAYMEE SIRE: Do you have a favorite protein to cook with and a favorite vegetable to cook?
MICHAEL SYMON: My favorite protein is pork, because it's just so versatile. I mean, in the words of Homer Simpson, you're trying to tell me one animal gives us bacon, ham, pork chops, and ribs?
JAYMEE SIRE: Accurate.
MICHAEL SYMON: So I do love the versatility of the hog. I love root vegetables, so beets, carrots, turnips, celery root. I love cabbages, which is probably my Eastern Euro-Cleveland upbringing. Kohlrabi I love. I love the vegetables that no one used to cheer for, but now have got more popular. Fortunately for me it eventually became trendy.
JAYMEE SIRE: It was a true underdog story and now--
MICHAEL SYMON: Yeah.
JAYMEE SIRE: Now they're shining. As you've mentioned you have a strong affection for barbecue, you have the barbecue restaurant Mabel's, you're a mentor on Barbecue Brawl, is there something specific that draws you to barbecue?
MICHAEL SYMON: The patience of it. Look, I love throwing ribeye on the grill and eating it 20 minutes later, but there's something magic about taking a tougher cut of meat and putting it in a smoker, and then 15 hours later it's done. I love the process of cooking and the techniques of cooking, so those things always appealed to me. I like making ham, and prosciutto, and salami, and slow cooking meats. And again, a lot of that is how we grew up.
When I was a kid, we couldn't afford steak. We didn't eat a steak. We ate cuts of meat that were inexpensive, that either had to be braised, or smoked, or slow roasted, or-- that's what we ate. And that's why when the old food started becoming popular, my grandfather used to like-- he would come into Lola and he'd be like, you're charging $18 for sweet bread? You should be ashamed of yourself. You can get them at the market for a buck. And I'm like, pap, not anymore you can't. So it was like he-- so that just always kind of sang to me. So I just love the process. And again, the live fire thing. I guess I like starting fires as a kid. It just worked out for me as an adult.
JAYMEE SIRE: You made it into a career. Let's talk Barbecue Brawl. This is obviously the competition show with Bobby Flay and Eddie Jackson. You guys each pick and mentor teams of master barbecuers in a variety of very tough grilling challenges. So as a master barbecuer yourself, how much fun is this show?
MICHAEL SYMON: So much fun. I mean, people know now that Bobby and I, we've been best friends for a long time. We don't see each other a ton because of work and all those other things, and we're always working. But for 20 plus years, he's been one of my closest friends. And one, when we get to do these shows together, we get to hang out for three weeks, which is right off the rip is great.
And I think what the camera catches a lot of times is almost like us in our natural environment just giving each other shit, and all of a sudden now it's on TV. We forget that we're on TV. And then Eddie was the perfect addition to the whole thing. He's just a great guy, and really fun, and has no problem busting chops. Bobby and I did season one together and then Eddie came with us this year, and it was just a riot. We had a blast doing it.
JAYMEE SIRE: I mean, you could definitely tell that you guys had a good time. What is your strategy for picking your team on the show?
MICHAEL SYMON: I always try to look for-- and I do the same thing in my restaurant. Obviously you want people that are skilled, but I also look for a personality where there doesn't feel like there's a lot of arrogance there, that they are going to be good teammates to the people that are around them. So when it gets down to the nitty gritty, yes, it's a competition.
But I always feel it's beneficial that if you have a group of people that are comfortable working together and helping each other get through. So that was my goal when I was putting the team together. And then one of the-- Brittany Baker, I've known her father and I knew her for 25 plus years. So it was like I knew right off the rip with Britt there's someone who's a team player always, and is going to work hard, and it's always fun to be around. She understands team very well.
JAYMEE SIRE: And coaching.
MICHAEL SYMON: And coaching. Yeah.
JAYMEE SIRE: I mean, obviously you are there to mentor and coach these competitors, but did you learn anything from them along the way?
MICHAEL SYMON: Oh, always. I mean, they all were super talented, all had different skill sets. Britt did like a really cool fried chicken one day that was great. And all of them just did things a little bit differently. So I would just let them do their thing and then say, look, maybe we could add this, or what do you think about this?
And I took it truly as a mentor. I didn't want to do the work for them so to speak, I wanted them to think it out for themselves, and then say like what do you think if maybe we added a touch of this, or touch of that, or did this, or did that. Most of the time it works. Some of the time it didn't. Sometimes I gave bad advice like anybody else. But for the most part, I think we worked really well as a group.
JAYMEE SIRE: Last year your team fell to team Bobby and you mentioned that you guys have been best friends for 20 years. How much did that sting?
MICHAEL SYMON: Oh, it stung. I mean, I guess fortunately and unfortunately it's like off camera I think I beat him in most things. Like in golf he's put additions on my house. It's an exaggeration. But for all the years of Iron Chef, they always wanted us to go against each other. We said we're not doing it. We'll be partners, we'll go against other chefs, we're not going to cook against each other. And so this last year was the first time we really went against each other on TV, and he won. And I'm like this sucks.
I mean, we laughed about it. We had a good time with it, but I'm like, oh my God, the first time I go against you l in a televised event you win. I'm like where's the camera when we're golfing and you're paying me at the end, that's what we need the camera.
JAYMEE SIRE: Why do you think you guys get along so well?
MICHAEL SYMON: To be honest with you, him and Liz have a very similar personality. They're both-- Bobby's pretty quiet in real life, and I think a little bit on the shy side. And my wife's the same way. Liz is very quiet and shy until you get to know them obviously. So obviously I am not quiet, nor shy. As both Liz and Bobby tell me they're like, dude, when you're in an elevator, you don't need to make friends with the person in the elevator with you. And I'm like well, they're just--
JAYMEE SIRE: Or the Uber driver, or--
MICHAEL SYMON: I mean, I got 20 minutes. Well, why not converse. So I think that the reason that we get along so well is like the little yin and yang situation. So we play off each other very well in that manner.
JAYMEE SIRE: This has been so much fun. We are going to wrap up with a quick rapid fire round and then one final question here on Food Network Obsessed. All right, favorite barbecue style?
MICHAEL SYMON: Oh, gosh, it's such a hard one. I mean, I like the Cleveland style that we do, but if I had to pick one, I would say Eastern Carolina.
JAYMEE SIRE: What's Cleveland style?
MICHAEL SYMON: Well, we kind of developed our own style. It's a very mustard vinegar-based style, and we use a lot of the Eastern European spices.
JAYMEE SIRE: All right. Coffee order?
MICHAEL SYMON: Coffee order would be either a double espresso or a macchiato.
JAYMEE SIRE: OK, late night snack of choice?
MICHAEL SYMON: Oh, this is the easiest one ever. Salt and vinegar potato chips with French onion dip.
JAYMEE SIRE: Oh, OK. I like the combo there. Charcoal or gas grill? I feel like I know the answer, but.
MICHAEL SYMON: Yeah. What's a gas grill?
JAYMEE SIRE: All right, so charcoal. All time favorite Cleveland athlete?
MICHAEL SYMON: Oh, wow, that's tough. Gosh. You know what, he's a dear friend and I think because a lot of it really was my childhood, I'm going to say Bernie Kosar.
JAYMEE SIRE: OK. I think I know the answer to this one as well based on one of your other answers, but pork or beef?
MICHAEL SYMON: Pork, but it's close.
JAYMEE SIRE: It's close. OK. Worst thing you've ever cooked?
MICHAEL SYMON: Oh. Cow testicles.
JAYMEE SIRE: OK. What went wrong?
MICHAEL SYMON: Well, I'm always one of those people that want to try everything. So one of my sous-chefs at the time said we're just going to keep trying everything, and we got to vote-- you hear Rocky Mountain oysters, all that stuff. We braised them, sauteed them, and then I said they're not good. If they're not good fried, they won't be good. Because anything fried just tastes better, so we fried them, awful.
JAYMEE SIRE: Still not good.
MICHAEL SYMON: And I eat everything. I eat brains, liver, heart. I eat everything, but man those things are not good.
JAYMEE SIRE: I had to judge a local cooking competition once and that was the secret ingredient, and I was not a fan either.
MICHAEL SYMON: Nope.
JAYMEE SIRE: All right, final rapid fire question. Favorite Food Network show that you are not on?
MICHAEL SYMON: Oh, that's a good one. Good Eats.
JAYMEE SIRE: Good choice. All right, our final question on Food Network Obsessed, this is the one we ask everybody before we let you go. So what would be on the menu for your perfect food day? So breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert. There's no rules. You can travel, time travel, spend however much money you want, anybody can cook it for you. It's your day, so go.
MICHAEL SYMON: OK. Go. All right, I would actually have Flay. Bobby makes great scrambled eggs, so I would have him make me of any variety of his scrambled eggs in the morning. I would prefer if they got a little fancy, like maybe a little caviar on there. He does that occasionally with some brioche toast. So Flay gets to work, I want eggs for breakfast.
JAYMEE SIRE: OK.
MICHAEL SYMON: Lunch. My favorite lunch would be I would go to Barbuto, the original Barbuto, and go see Jonathan Waxman and have him make me his roasted chicken with salsa verde, some mashed potatoes, and a shaved Brussels sprouts salad.
JAYMEE SIRE: OK.
MICHAEL SYMON: And then for dinner. If I was in Cleveland for dinner-- I just had it the other night, I would go to my mom's and ask for lasagna because nothing beats it. She never makes it the same. Really like I've done some-- I've written some recipes that are my mom's lasagna. They're like one of her versions, but she just wings it, but it's always perfect. And the other night, fantastic.
If I wasn't in Cleveland, I would get in a car or something, and I'd get to Philly, and I would have Marc Vetri make me pasta, lots of pasta. It could be lasagna, could be whatever he wants. I really don't care. No one makes pasta as good as Marc, period. End of conversation, don't even want to discuss it with anyone.
JAYMEE SIRE: What about dessert?
MICHAEL SYMON: Oh, dessert. So I'm a little bit weird with dessert. I don't like a million different things. I like my desserts relatively straightforward and simple. But my pastry chef for a million years, Summer, used to make a dark chocolate pudding with toffee popcorn on it and sea salt, and it just made me so, so happy. If I couldn't have that, I'd go back in time and I'd have my Ya-ya's rice pudding. But it would either be rice pudding or that dark chocolate pudding with that salty caramel toffee popcorn.
JAYMEE SIRE: What about the baklava? Or is that just a snack?
MICHAEL SYMON: The baklava, it's a snack. That's not dessert. That's a snack.
JAYMEE SIRE: That's an in-between meal snack. Well, it sounds like a perfect food day with a lot of people that you really respect in your life, so I love that. And I love chatting with you and catching up, and thank you so much for taking the time.
MICHAEL SYMON: Thank you. Have a great day.
JAYMEE SIRE: You too.
MICHAEL SYMON: Chow.
JAYMEE SIRE: I do have to say I love the Michael-Bobby bromance. It is a fun thing to listen to. They clearly have a lot of respect and admiration for each other. Perhaps maybe there's a Bobby and Michael go to Italy on the horizon, or maybe Greece, or Eastern Europe. You can catch Michael heating things up on the latest season of Barbecue Brawl. As well as on his cooking show, Symon's Dinners Cooking Out, both now streaming on Discovery Plus.
As always, thanks so much for listening and make sure you follow us wherever you listen to your podcast so you don't miss a thing. And, of course, if you enjoyed today's episode, please rate and review. We do love it when you do that. That's all for now. We'll catch you foodies next Friday.