CHEF MICHAEL LANZEROTTE
Culinary Director
ROOTED IN THE LAND. DRIVEN BY WHAT’S POSSIBLE.
Born and raised in the Midwest, Chef Michael Lanzerotte built his culinary career in Chicago, where he developed an early appreciation for the ingredients, growers, and seasons that shape the food of the region. While earning his Culinary Arts degree from Kendall College, he worked in the kitchens of Taverna 750 and Sociale, continuing with both concepts after graduating in 2015. He later served as Executive Chef with 16" on Center before joining A to Z Hospitality as Culinary Director, overseeing three distinct regional-European concepts, leading menu development, and deepening relationships with local farms and producers.
Along the way, Michael began paying closer attention to where the ingredients arriving in Chicago kitchens were actually coming from. Again and again, that trail led back across the state line to farms in Indiana. What began as an interest in sourcing grew into something larger: a belief that chefs should know the people who grow and raise their ingredients, understand the land behind them, and use those relationships to shape what ultimately reaches the plate.
Today, as Culinary Director of Meraki Hospitality Group, Michael brings that philosophy to an entire family of restaurants and culinary experiences. He leads the culinary direction across Meraki’s concepts, building relationships with farmers and producers, guiding ingredient sourcing and seasonality, shaping menus alongside each restaurant’s culinary team, and developing experiences that give those ingredients a place to tell a bigger story.
His role reaches beyond what happens in any one kitchen. Michael is helping define what food means at Meraki—connecting the people who grow it with the chefs who prepare it, challenging teams to create with purpose and curiosity, and continually finding new ways to bring the region to the table.
FROM THE KITCHEN TO THE FARM
Michael’s dedication to agriculture extends far beyond the kitchens he leads. He is the owner of Rolling Fog Farmstead in Crown Point and founder of Home Sweet Hive, pursuits that have put him on the other side of the ingredients he has spent his career cooking.
Working the land has given Michael an intimate understanding of what it takes to grow food—from the patience and unpredictability of a season to the countless hours of work behind something that may ultimately become a single ingredient on a plate. Through Home Sweet Hive, that connection extends to beekeeping and the essential role pollinators play in the health of our farms, gardens, and broader food system.
For Michael, farming has made the relationship between agriculture and hospitality impossible to separate. The decisions made in a field, on a farm, or around a hive ultimately shape what is possible in a kitchen. It is why he believes so strongly in knowing the people behind our food, respecting the work that comes before the plate, and creating opportunities for farmers and chefs to learn from one another.
That belief now informs not only the way Michael cooks and leads, but the kind of culinary community he wants to help build in Northwest Indiana.
BUILDING A BIGGER TABLE
Those experiences ultimately inspired Michael to create Whole Hog Invitational—a culinary event built around the relationship between the people who raise and grow our food, the chefs who transform it, and the community that brings them together.
For The Inaugural Table, five regional chefs will take heritage pork from Howe Farms and ingredients grown and produced throughout Indiana and turn them into five distinctly different expressions of the region. Farmers and producers will be part of the experience alongside the chefs, giving guests an opportunity to discover not only what is on the plate, but where it came from and who made it possible.
But Michael is building Whole Hog with a vision that extends far beyond its first year. His ambition is to establish a defining culinary event for Northwest Indiana—one that chefs want to compete in, farmers and producers want to be part of, and the community looks forward to year after year.
As Whole Hog grows, so can its impact: creating new relationships between chefsand producers, challenging culinary talent to think differently about regional ingredients, bringing greater visibility to Indiana agriculture, and giving Northwest Indiana a culinary tradition distinctly its own.
CHEF. FARMER. FATHER.
For all the kitchens he leads, relationships he builds, and ideas he brings to life, Michael’s most important role is at home.
Together with his wife, Katie, Michael is raising their sons, Elijah and Gabriel, alongside Nebi and Panda—the much-loved dog and cat who round out the family. It is a life that intertwines family, food, and farming, and one that has given greater purpose to Michael’s commitment to creating a healthier future for the people and communities around him.
Katie describes Michael as someone who gives each part of his life the same unwavering commitment and integrity. He can spend countless hours turning a vision for their farm into reality, lead a culinary team through the creation of something entirely new, and still understand that the people waiting for him at home are at the center of why he does any of it.
For Michael, these roles aren't separate. Being a father influences the farmer he wants to be. Farming influences the chef he has become. And all of it shapes the way he leads—with respect for the work, the people behind it, and what we leave for the generation that follows.