How a bland skating diet inspired gold medalist Brian Boitano’s love of cooking

SAN JOSE — Flavor was never part of Brian Boitano’s diet. In fact, his figure skating career depended on a bland, boring diet.

“I would eat a chicken breast and baked potato every night,” Boitano said. “A salad with diet dressing and some plain curly pasta. No sauce. It was a terrible diet, and I did that for years. And also, I was starving. I really wanted more food.”

But that light diet has inspired the former Olympic gold medalist and Bay Area local’s post-skating career path.

Boitano, 59, is taking the next steps in his culinary career. Now he’s creating dishes and drinks for lounges opening up in boutique Kindler Hotels across the country — including a pop-up Boitano’s Lounge at SAP Center he’s hosting at the U.S. National Figure Skating Championships this week in San Jose.

Fans attending this week’s event buy special VIP tickets with access to Boitano’s Lounge, taking over the swanky BMW Lounge used for San Jose Sharks games. The perk: Fellow former Olympians such as Kristi Yamaguchi, Ashley Wagner and Mariah Bell are serving the Boitano-crafted cocktails and Italian-inspired eats.

It’s the latest venture for the Sunnyvale native who, upon retirement from skating, dove right into his love for cooking and creating recipes. While Boitano stays well connected to the figure skating world — he can dive right into a full analysis about the competition, the history of the sport and his trailblazing impact on American men’s skating — the moments he spent in his kitchen are those he remembers most fondly.

“I had a group of friends that would always come over to the house because I was the first person who bought a house with a real kitchen,” Boitano said. “So all my friends were like, ‘let’s go to your house.’ We would all cook together. It got me really interested in cooking and what that means, sharing that time with friends.”

In 2009, Boitano turned those casual dinner parties into a Food Network television show called “What Would Brian Boitano Make?” — a play on the parody song “What Would Brian Boitano Do?” from the television show “South Park.” The show aired for two seasons and Boitano turned the concept into a cookbook of the same name.

Boitano said he’d love to go back on TV someday — he’s made several appearances over the years on everything from “Hell’s Kitchen” to “Giada at Home.” But he’s opening up a handful more Boitano’s Lounges in hotels from Lincoln, Neb. — which opened up in 2019 — to Kansas City to Baltimore.

The Boitano-crafted menu has everything from flatbreads to bruschetta. His signature cocktails always have a little Italian edge. The “Sex in the Suburbs,” for example is his own interpretation of a cosmopolitan using a little Limoncello.

“It always seems to go with an Italian flair,” he said. “I don’t know if its my heritage or the thing I know most about. Every time I start out with something, a flatbread, it starts out with certain elements and then I start adding Italian elements. For a cocktail, I’ll wonder what would that be like with an Amaro or Limoncello.”