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“Jennifer, who was just my girlfriend then, co-signed on a loan,” recalls Voltaggio.

“Her parents were really angry.” His time at the Holiday Inn more than prepared him.

“I started learning that food was more powerful than just getting a paycheck,” says Voltaggio, smiling. And that’s when I started paying attention to this as being a career.” (Ironically, it was Jennifer who first cooked for .

“He would sit with me at lunch, and I would always give him a half of my sandwich because he never packed one,” recalls Jennifer.) His mother, Sharon, who cooked simple, homemade fare, was also an early influence.

It’s a rare moment of respite for the James Beard Award-nominated chef and runner-up.

While the accomplished 38-year-old has been on a roll, opening six restaurants in six years, and still continuing to add to his culinary canon, his latest iteration—open since late June—is particularly personal.

“I wasn’t necessarily thinking of cooking as a profession, but I asked the chef, ‘If I get through this program, will you let me cook?

,’ because what he was doing was much cooler than busing tables,” recounts Voltaggio, who eventually worked his way up to chef, holding down a full-time job six days a week after graduating from high school.

For Voltaggio, the kitchen provided the stability and structure he didn’t have at home, as he bounced between his parents’ separate residences.

We’d go to Little Italy and the Inner Harbor, and I used to see the Orioles at Memorial Stadium.

I love Baltimore—I wanted to be in the spot that was part of where I grew up.” And although he presides over an ever-expanding empire with establishments throughout the Mid-Atlantic (he is the executive chef and co-owner of Aggio, Lunchbox, and Range—all in D.

He applied—and was admitted—to the prestigious CIA.