Aug. 4, 2023 – Executive Chef/Owner Elise Wiggins would walk to the ends of the Earth for her clients and staff at Cattivella, her Denver restaurant. Or at the very least, she would drive 1,300 miles in a rented refrigerated truck to the Louisiana Bayou to purchase 3,000 pounds of crawfish and then drive another 1,300 miles home to offer takeout crawfish bowls to her loyal clients during the pandemic. “Crawfish bowls are fun so y’all can come pick it up and go back to your home to have a mini crawfish cookout,” Chef Elise, member of the Denver Bailliage, told her clients during the depths of the pandemic. “Everyone needs to be happy,” she said to Chaîne during a July 30, 2023 telephone interview.

Childhood in Louisiana

Elise traces her strong client-centered, culinary philosophy to her childhood and a batch of chocolate chip cookies she made with her mother. Seared into her memory, she can still see herself sitting on the counter watching her mother transform simple ingredients into cookie dough. “I remember her putting my hands in the cookie dough. I can remember to this day. I can feel the coldness. I can feel the chips. I can feel the grease. She baked the cookies and then my dad, my sister and I had a cookie. I’ll never forget the sensation of eating that cookie, the sugar rush and it was hot out of the oven. It was so good. Everyone was oohing and aahing, just so good. Immediately it clicked with me. Ah-ha! You make really good food, you can make a lot of people happy in a short amount of time. It just hit me like a thunderbolt. I want to do this for a living. I want to be a chef,” Elise said.

Both of her parents were children in military families so they were seasoned world travelers. As her mother grew up, she spent her summers in Italy. Once married, she passed along her love of Italy and Italian food to her children in an ingenious way in her Louisiana home. Elise vividly remembers one dinner. “She turned out the lights, lit candles and she put photos of herself in Italy on the table. She talked about how she learned to make this dish – Carbonara – and the history of the dish. I was hooked,” Elise said.

Her road to a successful culinary career had a few curves although Elise never wavered in her desire to become a chef. How many sisters argue about whether to watch Julia Child or Sesame Street? Elise and her sister did! She was committed to a culinary career. But her parents had other thoughts.

Thinking children normally set their sights on lofty careers that change with the wind and are rarely realized, Elise’s parents told her she would be going to college, not culinary school. So she enrolled in Northeast Louisiana University, now part of the Louisiana State University (LSU) system. She declared a triple major in Psychology, Philosophy and Anthropology. It was not as hard as it sounds, Elise explained. She was very interested in the study of man so she stuck it out and graduated. The years of study were a test of perseverance. “I was just miserable. I really wanted to go to culinary school,” she said. Keeping her fingers in the culinary pie, she worked at restaurants throughout college so she was attending the School of Hard Knocks while also navigating and conquering the ivory tower. It would lay a firm foundation for her life’s work.

After graduation she moved to Dallas where she worked at The Grotto under Chefs Morris Salerno and Karl Houck, two chefs who were part of the first United States Culinary Team to earn a Gold medal at the International Culinary Olympics. “I had the honor of working with these guys in the kitchen. That’s where it really started,” Elise said. As her mentor chefs, they recommended she go to culinary school. Finally, her dream as a young girl was within reach.

Culinary School

The United States was a blank canvas for Elise who could now chart her own course. “I’ve always had this calling to go to Colorado so I took three months to go to Colorado and camp. It’s just so beautiful. I fell in love with Colorado. Just for giggles, I wanted to see if they just happened to have a culinary school,” she said. At the time in the 1980s, options for culinary schools were limited. Culinary schools were not yet a “thing” because the Food Network did not launch until 1993, a major factor in the explosion of interest in culinary careers.

Elise did find a school in Denver, the Colorado Art Institute, and when she found it, the term began in three weeks. So she returned to Louisiana and told her family she was moving to Colorado to attend culinary school. They didn’t believe her. “In the South, you don’t leave your mama,” Elise said with a chuckle. A couple of days before she was to depart, her mother still did not believe she would follow through with it. “You’re really doing this?” her mother asked. “Yeah, I’m really doing this. This is what I’ve wanted my whole life. So I did it. I moved to Denver,” Elise said.

Just as she did in college, she worked in restaurants during her two years in culinary school. She also studied in Italy. “Just as I had a calling for Colorado, I had a calling for Italy,” she said. She started in Florence where she attended school to learn classic Italian cuisine but had a desire to learn dishes unknown to Americans so she could expand palates beyond lasagna and ravioli. During these years, she would travel to Italy twice a year to visit each region to immerse herself in the cuisine and culture. Her scheduled visit in 2020 would have been her 30th annual trip to Italy but was canceled due to the pandemic.

After graduating from culinary school in 1994, she spent the next year traveling and learning throughout Mexico and Central America. The Wyndam Rio Mar Hotel in Puerto Rico recruited her to be the Executive Chef of Palio, their Four-Star Diamond restaurant, the island’s only Italian restaurant. She moved to Puerto Rico. Well on her way to a successful career, in 2002, the Peabody Hotel in Memphis recruited her to launch their new Italian restaurant, Capriccio. Back in the United States, her love of Colorado and stellar reputation would soon draw her west again.

Planting Roots in Denver

In 2004, Panzano in Denver hired Elise as their Executive Chef. Panzano’s management had recruited her years before as she was finishing culinary school and they were building their restaurant. She knew it was going to be a beautiful venue but decided she needed to spread her wings before settling down. Now back in Denver with years of travel and experience to bring to her new position, she planted her roots in the Mile High City that remain to this day.

For the next 12 years, she crushed it at Panzano, building a loyal clientele and a jet black bottom line that increased significantly each year. An experience in management early in her career as a chef informed her management style.

That experience came courtesy of the School of Hard Knocks. In most commercial kitchens years ago, executive chefs would degrade neophyte chefs who had to learn to duck when plates were thrown at them to make a point. Elise endured the humiliation thinking it was just the way things were done in the intense atmosphere to extract top performance. But she didn’t like it. Once she ascended to managing a kitchen staff, she followed in those harsh footsteps. But one night changed her management style forever.

“I had literally three cooks from a five-man team walk off the line because I told them I could cook all of their positions for them and they didn’t do it right. That night was the hardest night ever,” she said. “I learned. I knew better before I did that because I didn’t like it. From that day forward, I’m never going to do this again. I’m going to inspire people and not degrade them. I’m not going to lead that way.”

Instead of criticism, she began teaching and mentoring young chefs and cooks. Her instincts were correct. One of her chefs was with her for 18 years and just left to start his own business. Others have been with her for a decade or longer. “I’m becoming an old dog now,” Elise quipped.

Cattivella

With Elise excelling at all aspects of running a restaurant, in 2016 she felt she was ready to take the deep dive into culinary entrepreneurship.

A building in her Denver neighborhood became available so she stopped into the bank down the street from Panzano and told the bankers she wanted a loan to open a restaurant. They knew her. They ate her food. She then shared with them balance sheets showing she grew annual revenue at Panzano from $3.1 million when she started to $9.3 million for a 33 percent year-over-year growth. That growth is unheard of in the restaurant industry as many are thrilled to realize a five percent annual growth. It turns out the way to a bank’s vault sometimes goes through bankers’ stomachs! They approved a $1.5 million loan for Elise and are glad they did as even with the pandemic, Elise has less than 10 percent of the loan left on her balance sheet.

When she went to sign the lease for her building space, leasing company personnel asked her who her investors were. Elise replied she did not have investors. She and the bank were the only two principals. They didn’t believe her so they asked to meet with her bankers. Yes, it was just the bank and Elise, the bankers assured them. In their 30 years of writing leases, the leasing company had never seen a bank do a deal with an individual chef.

In designing her restaurant, Elise knew she wanted her kitchen staff to really connect with her clients. Italians are very welcoming people as she learned from her many trips to Italy. “I would be pulled in as family. I wanted to create an open environment where people would be treated as family as I had been treated in Italy,” she said. With seating for 200 inside, her clients can see what everyone is doing in the kitchen. She has 26 seats around the Chef’s Counter so people have a bird’s eye view of her chefs as they create their masterpieces. And Elise included an open Pasta Table and Butcher’s Corner where prep work becomes performance art for all to see and enjoy. The open environment is a two-way street. “The other side is chefs get immediately rewarded when they see people love their food,” she added. With almost 100 seats outdoors on the patio, Elise manages a staff of 35 at her busy restaurant that is open for dinner only.

When choosing a name, she wanted something unique although with thousands of Italian restaurants, that was a difficult order. Then she remembered a chef with whom she had studied in Italy who would affectionately call her Cattivella, the Italian word for “naughty,” because she was always playing pranks on him. She contacted him to make sure the word did not have a more negative connotation. With his assurance it was appropriate, the more she thought about it, the more she liked it. She describes herself as mischievous and a bit of a rule breaker, two traits that give entrepreneurs confidence to take risks, large and small. She had a vision to break the norms of Italian restaurants in the United States by not offering classic dishes. And she still recalls as a young girl sneaking chocolates from her mama’s chocolate box. Cattivella it was!

First time clients are still surprised today when they don’t recognize anything on the menu. In a perfect New York accent, during the interview Elise repeated a question she hears often from Big Apple visitors. That is, “Where is your Sunday gravy sauce?” Once they taste her food, the issue is moot. They are in Italy eating and learning about Italian cuisine. “They end up loving it because I tell them the story and the history behind the dishes, where I learned it. People end up absolutely loving it,” she said.

As an example, Elise chose to include Pasticcio on her menu to expand her clients’ palates and pay tribute to Catherine di Medici (1519-1559), born in Florence, who was served the dish on her birthday.

Elise keeps a keen eye on food publications with widespread readership. Just before the pandemic, a major food magazine featured an article on Focaccia di Recco, an item on her menu. Soon many restaurants would likely be offering the dish so she took it off her menu. “I’m that competitive,” she laughed.

Imagine the interesting conversations at Denver Bailliage events as members tap into Elise’s expertise. In reflecting about the Chaîne, Elise said: “We are soul connected in the love and passion for food and wine. Cattivella truly epitomizes everything a Chaîne member wants and desires through their membership, which is learning about and tasting amazing food and fantastic wine.”

With her love of the history behind her food, many years ago her clients asked her to take them to Italy so they could immerse themselves in Italian cuisine and culture guided by an expert who knows every corner of the boot. So Elise’s Tour of Italy excursions became a reality. Each year she visits a different region for a one-of-a-kind experience. When touring northern Italy, Elise takes the group to meet a winemaker in the Piedmont region that is famous for its Nebbiolo grape. Before harvest in October, fog from the ocean bathes the vines, infusing the grape with added minerality and giving the class of Barolo wines their distinctive notes. “These are the things that are so cool that I geek out on and that people learn from me. It’s very cool,” she said.

After a break due to the pandemic, she will return to Italy in October with two, seven-day, back-to-back tours for 14 people each week. When she posted the tours earlier this year, both weeks sold out in three days. In addition to her tours, Elise offers regular classes, including one in late August on foraging to learn about edible plants.

Elise has a sign at Cattivella that says it all. “Come in as friends, you’re leaving as family.” From years of living and loving her profession, Elise has a very large family but it’s no surprise. Her clients will now walk to the ends of the Earth for the Cattivella experience, naughty in name only and simply bellissimo!

NOTE: On Thursday, October 5, Cattivella is a Dine-Around location at the National Grand Chapitre in Denver and on Friday, October 6, Elise will conduct a White Truffle Cooking Class and Lunch at Cattivella. For more information, view the National Grand Chapitre brochure.

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Cattivella