Starting From Scratch at Gaylord

If you’re having an event at Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center in Nashville, Tenn., you’ll have the opportunity to experience the culinary delights of Executive Chef Michael Swann. Swann started at the resort in 2004 after he gained experience as executive chef in restaurants and smaller hotel properties.

His position at Gaylord Opryland is the first in which he is involved in preparing thousands of meals at the same time. Tradeshow Week Senior Assistant Editor Stephanie Corbin recently spoke with Swann about his philosophy on food and what he’s brought to Gaylord’s table.

Tradeshow Week: What attracted you to the position at Gaylord Opryland?

Michael Swann: I was very intimidated by this large hotel the first time I visited it. I wasn’t sure that my style of cuisine would really work here. … What really attracted me to it was the fact that they wanted to do things with a lot of spice and a lot of savvy.

They wanted to do really creative things, and I saw it as a great opportunity to be involved with a company that was not only resourceful, but (also) had the kind of drive to make these things happen.

TSW: What is different about your preparation process at a large hotel that caters to very, very large groups?

Swann: The interpretation of the chef who was here previous was a little bit different. I think it was always a good, quality hotel, but my focus was more of a restaurant-style environment in a catering operation. My thought process was more to concentrate on one dish at a time, rather than concentrating on the masses to create restaurant-style dining in this environment.

We started first with the commissary. … We kind of built it as ground zero. This is where we built all of the soup stocks, all of the sauce bases, from scratch, so we had good fundamentals or a good foundation to really be able to bring that into each kitchen in the hotel and be able to finish things just like you would in a restaurant.

TSW: What have you changed about the food preparation?

Swann: We’ve got basically … a pressure tumbler. What this vessel does is it allows me to marinate 300 pounds of protein at one time. You put this (protein) inside (the tumbler), and it has a pressure cap that absolutely closes … all the air from getting in there. … You pour the marinade inside there with the protein and you tumble it for one hour and it puts a 48-hour marinade on the product. … It takes away that novel of the old rubber chicken that you get in a hotel or convention center. …

Another thing we’ve put a lot of time and effort in is in the bakery. One of the neat things that we’ve done is we’ve gotten away from all-purpose flour. All-purpose flour, we find, carries a higher rate of gluten in it, and when you carry a higher ration of gluten it tends to slow the metabolic rate for human consumption and it tends to make the body more sluggish.

TSW: Gaylord has four properties. Do all the chefs work together?

Swann: We normally plan on conference calls with all the chefs in our company at least once a quarter, if not a little bit more. … We utilize the resources we have as a brand to our advantage.

And we’ve found that that has been so helpful because with our four hotels, we are one brand, but we really want to make sure that each hotel and each hotel chef has their own interpretation of, not just the cuisine, but also the indigenous flavors around them.

TSW: What are some of your favorite dishes to prepare and why?

Swann: The specialties I’ve always hung my hat on were Mediterranean-influenced dishes and a lot of northern Italian dishes. I guess if I were to throw out what truly my favorite dish is (it would be) Osso Buco Milanese, which is a braised veal shank. I love that particular dish because it has a rich, intense flavor, and it’s done from a very unique method of cookery because a braise is a skill set that you acquire.

We’re looking at two different kinds of heat that have to be put onto a braise. … I think that the labor of love comes through when you’re cooking in a braise.