Tag Archives: Mike Isabella

One of the young women at the table next to us had gotten up to go to the bathroom, and the other was focused on her phone, carefully Instagram-ing pictures of what she’d eaten. Our friend Amanda gently leaned over and said softly, “You might want to look up.” She lifted her head to find Top Chef celebrity and Bandolero head chef Mike Isabella sitting across from her, calmly pretending to play with her friend’s phone. Rendered near speechless, she stammered a few words of small talk with Chef Isabella before he got up and moved on; she immediately turned to us and said, “Oh my god, I felt like a 13-year old girl!”

Bandolero’s first night was filled with a lot of little moments like this one, moments that made the evening feel like a combination of restaurant opening and movie premiere.