Friday, Aug. 1, 1997 | 10:52 a.m.
FOR Michael Ty, this is the culmination of a long chef life.
It's safe to say that when young Michael hung around his mother's kitchen to escape the alienation of being an Asian immigrant among small-town Upstate New Yorkers, he didn't foresee himself as the 1997 National Chef of the Year.
It's safe to say that when that high school vocational-aptitude test came back advising him to pursue banking rather than cooking -- dismissed in those days as "home economics" -- he didn't foresee himself as the 1997 National Chef of the Year.
It's even safe to say that 22 years ago, after running his own restaurant back East, the best job he could get in Las Vegas was as a lowly kitchen runner, he didn't foresee himself as the 1997 National Chef of the Year.
And yet, here he is, the 1997 National Chef of the Year, with a hefty silver trophy from the American Culinary Federation to prove it. The executive chef at Lawry's the Prime Rib, Ty (pronounced "tee") is the first Las Vegan to receive the prestigious honor. Because he is a reticent, thoughtful man, you know he's gratified and truly humbled by the recognition.
"It's very gratifying," he says. "I'm truly humbled. There are a lot of chefs worthy of the honor."
But few like Michael Ty, at least according to his boss. "Some chefs are good cooks, but they're so damn temperamental," says Dick Powell, general manager of the 7-month-old Lawry's, where Ty oversees a kitchen staff of 23. "Their people skills are zero. You look at Michael, he's so in tune with computers and the electronic age; he's so in tune with the right way to treat people. ... Michael has his whole act together. Don't write that -- I'll have 15 people in here trying to steal him." Too late!
Wait -- some chefs are good cooks? There's a full day's supply of irony in the fact that cooking is the one thing largely irrelevant in being named National Chef of the Year. It's simply assumed you have a proficient level of kitchen witchery to even be in the position to win the award. To actually win it requires a secret recipe of dedication to the profession and community service.
During Ty's tenure in the kitchens at Caesars Palace and the Desert Inn, he was president of the local American Culinary Federation chapter and of the national organization itself.
"Michael really spearheaded the local Chef and Child program," says SUN Food Editor Muriel Stevens. Chef and Child is a national program of the ACF; in Las Vegas, it funds the work of two nutritionists, who teach kids in four at-risk schools the fundamentals of good eating. Local chefs raise the necessary money by auctioning off meals at their restaurants.
"It's been very successful," Ty says. "We're one of the highest fund-raising chapters in ACF." Oh, he's being modest; some years it's the highest fund-raising chapter. Last year's total: about $90,000. This year's, he predicts, will be about $75,000.
But the program is not about green, it's about greens. And bright reds. "Do you know that some of the children did not know what asparagus was, what a strawberry was, until we physically brought it to the table for them?"
He's also worked with City of Hope, the American Heart Association and the advisory boards of several schools, including his alma mater, State University of New York. As national president of ACF in 1993-94, he worked with the military to help its K-P crews prepare for the transition into the civilian food-service industry, and inaugurated competitions among chefs to design nutritious-yet-tasty school lunches.
Almost as an afterthought, Ty adds, "I also won the Chairman's Medallion, for contributions to the profession," at the same recent ACF convention where he won Chef of the Year honors. "It's a major service award."
Ty, 43, was born into a Chinese community in Manila, and lived there until the family emigrated to America in 1966. "Moving to the U.S. was a traumatic experience, in my opinion," he says now. He found it difficult to make the transition from the communal joys of extended-family life in Manila to the isolation of being a lone Asian face in an American crowd.
"I would seek refuge in my mother's kitchen, helping, just to be busy," Ty recalls. Thus began an infatuation with cooking that was undimmed even by a high school job-skills test that suggested banking as a more suitable career. After graduating from SUNY cooking school, he spent 18 months as a "troubleshooter" for an East Coast restaurant chain -- swooping into its outlets to organize kitchen procedures or add to the staff's training -- before being rewarded with his own restaurant in Sayre, Pa.
It wasn't long, however, before an aunt in Las Vegas advised the young man to head west; she offered to help him get a job at the legendary Caesars Palace. Since he was chafing under his current management, it sounded good to Ty, particularly after he had a few small questions answered, chiefly, What's a Caesars Palace? "Remember, I was a small-town kid from Upstate New York," he says.
Fast-forward 2,500 miles: The only job he could get was as a kitchen runner, a job rivaled only by dishwashing as the lowest rung on the culinary ladder. Ouch! "I was down in the dumps, no doubt about it," he says. "I decided I will get my feet in the door, show the chefs what I could do, and it will come in time."
And because you're reading about him in the newspaper now, you know it did come in time -- despite the many six-day weeks, despite the disappointment of watching chefs he considered less qualified advance ahead of him, despite, he says, being warned by a supervisor to stay out of Caesars dining rooms lest he disturb the diners' illusions of a kitchen stocked with European sophisticates ("And he was an Oriental chef himself!" Ty says) -- despite all that, he showed what he could do, and he has the snazzy silver trophy to prove it.
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