William Marc Malnati (born April 28, 1985) is an American restaurateur, producer, actor and

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...

Early life

Will Malnati is originally from

Northbrook, Illinois Northbrook is a suburb of Chicago, located at the northern edge of Cook County, Illinois, United States, on the border of Lake County, Illinois, Lake County. Per the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 35,222. When incorpo ...

. He attended

New Trier High School New Trier High School (, also known as New Trier Township High School or NTHS) is a public four-year high school, with its main campus for sophomores through seniors located in Winnetka, Illinois, United States, and a campus in Northfield, Illinoi ...

and

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

. Malnati grew up in a family of

restaurateurs A restaurateur is a person who opens and runs restaurants professionally. Although over time the term has come to describe any person who owns a restaurant, traditionally it refers to a highly skilled professional who is proficient in all aspec ...

: the grandson of Lou Malnati, founder of

Lou Malnati's Pizzeria Lou Malnati's Pizzeria is an American Chicago-style pizza restaurant chain headquartered in Northbrook, Illinois. It was founded by the son of Rudy Malnati, who was instrumental in developing the recipe for Chicago-style pizza, and it has become o ...

, and son of current Lou Malnati's owner Marc Malnati. Will Malnati started his creative career at production company

LivePlanet LivePlanet was a production company founded in 2000, and was known for television and new media platforms. History It was created by Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Chris Moore and Sean Bailey. Affleck and Damon ended their film production deal in late ...

Career

Hospitality

Following his graduation from the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University in 2007, Malnati managed restaurants and nightlife establishments in Chicago and New York. In 2013, Malnati partnered with

Ken Oringer Ken Oringer (born 1965 in Paramus, New Jersey) is a Boston-based chef who is a business partner of Jamie Bissonnette. Education Oringer studied restaurant management at Bryant College in Rhode Island (class of 1987) followed by a degree from the Cu ...

, Jamie Bissonnette, and Doug Jacob to open a Chelsea, New York location of Boston's Spanish tapas restaurant Toro. The three went on to open Toro outposts in Bangkok and Dubai. Malnati has since left the hospitality business.

At Will Media

In 2016, Malnati founded At Will Media, a production company for

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosing ...

s and other digital content. The company develops and produces original podcasts such as ''Sorry Charlie Miller'' in partnership with

Audible Audible may refer to: * Audible (service), an online audiobook store * Audible (American football), a tactic used by quarterbacks * ''Audible'' (film), a short documentary film featuring a deaf high school football player * Audible finish or rush ...

; ''Wild Things: Siegfried & Roy'', a multi-part nonfiction podcast about the legendary magicians for AppleTV+; and ''Breakthrough'', a singing competition developed exclusively as a podcast for Audible. Malnati presented ''Wild Things'' at the

Tribeca Film Festival The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by TriBeCa Productions, Tribeca Productions. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive progra ...

in 2021. The company also produces and curates podcasts for high-profile corporations. Malnati also hosted his own podcast, ''The Drop-In'', in 2016 and 2017. Each episode features a candid conversation with an interesting person in popular culture or leader in entertainment, hospitality and business. Guests have included

Chris Hardwick Christopher Ryan Hardwick (born November 23, 1971) is an American comedian, actor, television and podcast host, writer, and producer. He hosts ''Talking Dead'', an hourlong aftershow on AMC affiliated with the network's zombie drama series '' The ...

Sebastian Stan Sebastian Stan (born August 13, 1982) is a Romanian-American actor. He gained recognition for his role as Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldier in the Marvel Cinematic Universe media franchise beginning with the film '' Captain America: The First Ave ...

, and

Nico Tortorella Nico Tortorella (born July 30, 1988) is an American actor and model, known for roles in filmsincluding ''Scream 4'', the Fox crime drama series ''The Following'' (2013–2015), and the TV Land comedy-drama series '' Younger'' (2015–2021). Fro ...

Awards and honors

In 2013, Malnati was named to the

Zagat The ''Zagat Survey'', commonly referred to as Zagat (stylized in all caps; , ) and established by Tim and Nina Zagat in 1979, is an organization which collects and correlates the ratings of restaurants by diners. For their first guide, covering ...

's "30 Under 30" list as an owner of the

Chelsea Chelsea or Chelsey may refer to: Places Australia * Chelsea, Victoria Canada * Chelsea, Nova Scotia * Chelsea, Quebec United Kingdom * Chelsea, London, an area of London, bounded to the south by the River Thames ** Chelsea (UK Parliament consti ...

-based American nouveau restaurant Willow Road, and in 2015 was also named to ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...

"30 Under 30" as a managing partner at Toro.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Malnati, Will 1985 births American restaurateurs American consulting businesspeople Living people Cornell University School of Hotel Administration alumni