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KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL
From pork bellies to belly laughs, Chicagoan Jeff Mauro continues to expand on his brand of comfort food served with a smile.
By Lisa Shames / Portrait by Anthony Tahlier
Loosely defined as two slices of bread with something in between, sandwiches can be many things to many people. They’re one of the few dishes routinely welcomed at breakfast, lunch and dinner. And while their chameleon-like abilities are something to celebrate, it’s rare that a sandwich is described as dramatically life-changing.
Unless that is, you’re Jeff Mauro. After winning Season 7 of "Food Network Star" with his Italian-inspired sandwich—a perfectly made eggplant parmesan on brioche with mozzarella and ricotta, to be exact—Mauro went on to host five seasons of his own TV show, Sandwich King, an American tour of all things sandwiches. In 2014, he took on the role of co-host on The Kitchen, currently in its 16th season, where Mauro and a cast of Food Network all-stars share simple dinner recipes and family meal tips. Mauro is also the executive chef and partner of Pork & Mindy’s (porkandmindys.com), a chainlet of fast-casual restaurants specializing in slow-smoked meats sourced from Midwestern family farms that are made into—you guessed it—sandwiches. And then there’s his line of finger-lickin’- good barbecue sauces and the just-released Pig Candy, candied bacon dusted in brown sugar and slow-smoked to perfection, that’s now available as a grab-and-go snack at Mariano’s stores (and yes, it’s as delicious as it sounds).
But way before Mauro transformed himself into the Sandwich King, he was just a kid from a big Italian-American family growing up in Elmwood Park, Ill. One day his mom got tired of listening to him complain about the school lunches she made and told him he was on his own. “I was always very particular about what I ate,” he says of his side of the story. Once Mauro figured out that sandwiches travel best when all the elements are packaged separately in their own little zip-top bags, he’d assemble his lunches ingredient by ingredient at the school table.
“Nobody dislikes a sandwich,” says Mauro. From hand-pulled pork shoulder to slowsmoked cauliflower, creative (and tasty!) sandwiches, salads and sides fill out the menu at Pork & Mindy’s.
While his fanatical approach to sandwich construction led to some teasing from his schoolmates—“It wasn’t good for my popularity with the ladies,” he deadpans—odds are Mauro was in on the joke, too. In fact, it’s not only his talent for making tasty sandwiches that has earned him a slew of fans and an Emmy nomination, but his ability to have a heck of good time while doing it.
Performing, you see, is also a lifelong passion for Mauro, who, as a kid, dabbled in theater and took youth classes at The Second City. After graduating from Bradley University in Peoria, where he studied radio and television, he opened a deli with his cousin in Westmont, Ill., called Prime Time Deli & Catering. Not long after, he was cast in Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding. “I ran the deli during the day and at night I would suit up and perform,” says Mauro, who eventually played every male role in the improv-style Chicago show, including the lead of Tony. He learned a valuable lesson along the way. “It taught me how to work any possible room in any condition,” he says.
Properly bit by the acting bug, Mauro and his then-fiancée and now wife, Sarah, moved to Los Angeles. For four years, he hustled at a variety of jobs, while doing standup and sketch comedy. It almost happened a few times, but ultimately he got fed up with the constant rejections and came to a big realization.
He promptly enrolled in Le Cordon Bleu to hone his culinary chops.
After returning to Chicago, Mauro got a job as a private chef for a large mortgage company, where he would work his “accessible neighborhood guy” type of humor on the 400 or so employees who would eat there. “My soul needed to be back in Chicago,” he says of his decision to return home. “Deep down, I knew that if I made it in L.A., it wouldn’t feel right.”
Every year like clockwork, he’d go through the application process for Food Network Star. On his fourth try in 2011—his last he swore to his wife and then 2-year-old son, Lorenzo— he got the call he’d been waiting for. Twenty-four hours after auditioning in New York City and returning home to Chicago, he was back on a plane. Then, for two and a half months, he and his 14 castmates competed for the big prize with little connection to the outside world minus a weekly, videotaped 10-minute phone call. “It was so hard and bizarre,” he says, “and I had a tremendous amount of homesickness.”
In the end, it was all worth it. For the airing of the final episode, the organizer of Festa Italiana, an annual Chicago street festival on Taylor Street, threw a big party for Mauro and his family and friends. “It was such a magnificent moment, and I was with my people,” says Mauro of when the public finally learned he had won.
This self-confessed “class clown” hasn’t wasted a moment since. He routinely watches The Kitchen to find ways to improve and learn. “I do everything but draw on the screen and point out flaws,” he says. Mauro’s also in the process of opening more Pork & Mindy’s beyond the four he and his partner, Kevin Corsello, currently have, including one at Wrigley Field. (Upcoming Pork & Mindy’s locations include Irving Park and Old Town in Chicago; Lisle, Ill., and Denver, Colo.)
And to think, it all started with a sandwich. “Nobody dislikes a sandwich,” says Mauro of his obsession/passion. “They’re represented in every culture and country in the world. Sandwiches are universally loved, and that’s what we all strive to be, whether it’s a humble sandwich or a human being.” sl
