Matty’s Hot Chicken brings new Nashville-style chicken to Hamilton — with help from Guy Fieri
At just 17, Matthew Cipollo has a mature ethos about life in a professional kitchen, quoting the late chef Anthony Bourdain: Skills can be taught. Character you either have or don't have."
For both qualities, he looks up to his father and mentor, Michael Cipollo, CEO and executive chef of Local Restaurants Group Inc., the company behind Hamilton's HAMBRGR and a new pop-up venture named after his son, Matty's Hot Chicken.
At a time when financial pressures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic are forcing many restaurant owners to close their doors for good, Cipollo is proceeding with his plans to bring Nashville-style hot chicken to Hamilton.
Together with his wife and business partner, Paola, the couple opened the restaurant last week at a temporary location on King William Street in downtown Hamilton, thanks in part to a $20,000 prize he won on a Food Network competition show hosted by Guy Fieri.
Cipollo rose above his from-scratch cooking challengers on Guy's Grocery Games" in an episode that aired in February 2020, and hoped to use the reward money to help his son get started in the business with a food truck. They changed course, gearing up to launch Matty's as a brick-and-mortar restaurant before the pandemic put their plans on hold early last year.
The days of just being really good behind the stove, those days are gone," Cipollo said, adding that marketing, social media, and business savvy are important skills, especially to survive at a time when dine-in revenues are replaced by takeout and delivery.
But for aspiring chefs like his son, he believes the biggest challenge caused by the pandemic will be having the opportunity to master the trade through in-person apprenticeship.
I attribute a lot of my success to having worked under some great chefs over the formative years of my career. One of the most important things is - much like a master electrician, or bricklayer or steel worker - that you're able to learn from the collective knowledge of the industry," Cipollo said.
Matthew, or Matty, as he's known in the kitchen, is continuing to attend virtual classes at Bishop Tonnos Secondary School during the mornings, and working alongside his dad for the rest of the day. Although the new restaurant is his namesake, after growing up shadowing his dad in professional kitchens and working as a line cook, Matthew said he has a long way to go to earn his stripes.
I want to show people that I'm capable of doing the job like everyone else ... I prefer to be challenged and show what I can do as a cook," he said. He plans to take a gap year after graduation before hoping to train in French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Arts Institute in Ottawa.
His favourite food to cook is steak, but he has been overwhelmed by the positive reception of customers to his family's rendition of southern crispy chicken flavours.
The restaurant hopes to stir Hamilton's appetite for hot chicken amid concerning hospitality data from Statistics Canada at the end of January, which showed Ontario food services sales fell almost 33 per cent in November 2020 compared to the previous year.
Vjosa Isai is a Hamilton-based reporter at The Spectator. Reach her via email: visai@thespec.com