It’s a sun-drenched early afternoon in Los Angeles, but Valerie Bertinelli is still on European time. Fresh off an intense, trans-Atlantic family vacation, the beloved Golden Globe–winning actress and Emmy-winning culinary host freely admits she’s battling a bit of jet lag. Yet, listening to the warmth and enthusiasm in her voice, you would never guess she’s running on a disrupted sleep schedule.
“I love vacationing with my family,” Bertinelli says, explaining that her latest European getaway was anything but ordinary. With a travel crew consisting of her son, Wolfgang Van Halen; his wife, Andraia; her brother Patrick; and his wife, Stacy, the holiday turned into a memorable, high-octane mix of family bonding and heavy metal.
Courtesy of Valerie Bertinelli Instagram
“Wolf and his band, Mammoth, were on tour, but he had a couple of days off in Paris,” she shares, reminiscing about the whirlwind trip that also took them to a music festival in Cardiff, Wales. “The festival was a lot of fun, because it was all friends and, hands down, the best day I’ve had in a long time.”
For Bertinelli, the physical demands of sightseeing — including a grueling climb up 284 stairs to get to the top of the Arc de Triomphe just 24 hours after navigating more than 100 steps throughout Cardiff Castle — were a small price to pay for the view at the top.
“We’ve done family vacations since Wolfie was little,” she says. “One of our absolute favorite family trips was when we rented a Winnebago, and me, Ed [the late Eddie Van Halen, her ex-husband] and Wolf drove to the Petrified Forest National Park, the Hoover Dam and then to visit my parents and brother. When you experience travel with the people you love, it makes it so much more meaningful.”
The Rise Of Valerie’s Place
The desire for deep, authentic connection is the driving force behind Bertinelli’s latest venture: Valerie’s Place. Launched this past March, the digital platform serves as a cozy, virtual home for her loyal fan base, skipping social media noise and algorithms to connect Bertinelli directly with her community.
“The fans have been so amazing,” she says of the response. “I feel like we’re all part of this really fun community where I get to be a troop leader and do my cooking show again, which I missed terribly.”
Developed in partnership with Visible Things, a platform run by seasoned television executives, Valerie’s Place acts as a creative sandbox. Through a tiered subscription, starting at $2 a month, fans get access to original programming that reflects Bertinelli’s signature mix of cooking and lifestyle wisdom.
The lineup is intentionally intimate. In “Reheated,” Bertinelli joins forces with her longtime culinary producer and cookbook collaborator, Sophie Clark. Together, they revisit classic recipes from the 14-season Food Network run of “Valerie’s Home Cooking,” sharing behind-the-scenes secrets and fresh twists on old favorites.
For solo diners and empty nesters like herself, Bertinelli hosts “Meals for One,” a show dedicated to the philosophy that cooking for oneself deserves just as much care as a grand dinner party. “Real food, real life, no scaling required,” she emphasizes.
valeriesplace.com
Photo courtesy of Valeriesplace.com
There’s also “Now Val’s Cooking,” in which she prepares recipes she’s never shared on camera before, many inspired by her popular cookbook “Indulge: Delicious and Decadent Dishes to Enjoy and Share,” and “Now We’re Cooking Live,” where premium members can pull up a virtual stool, ask questions and cook with Bertinelli in real time.
The sense of community extends to her digital book club, “Now We’re Reading.” Meeting every other month via Zoom, it replicates a real-life book group Bertinelli has been in with friends for the past 30 years. “Getting to sit down and talk with all of these people who love the same things I love, or who turn me on to books I didn’t even know I’d enjoy, is incredible,” she says. “And hopefully, I can do the same for them.”
Quieting The Inner Critic
The book club’s first selection was Bertinelli’s deeply personal memoir “Getting Naked.” Both the book and its companion podcast have marked a period of intense self-reflection and raw vulnerability for the actress.
For a generation that watched her grow up as Barbara Cooper on the television show “One Day at a Time,” Bertinelli’s public struggles with body image, perfectionism and divorce felt intimately familiar. In the book, she dismantles the urge to hide behind a polished veneer.
“Writing it was challenging,” she admits, “but I’m so glad I did it. I wanted to make people feel less alone with the things we tend to go through and hold on to for too long. I know I held on to things for far too long. I found it incredibly important to include meditations, tips and little tricks in the book that helped me overcome some of the most difficult challenges in my life, and that I hope can help others.”
A major part of that healing journey has been learning how to quiet her inner critic and escape the toxic trap of needing outside approval. At 66, Bertinelli has reached a point of absolute clarity regarding her self-worth.
“Your self-esteem is so important,” she says firmly, offering advice she wishes she could have given to her younger self. “It really, truly does not matter what other people think of you, because you have no control over it. What you do have control over is your character, the way you treat people and the way you treat yourself.”
She acknowledges this mindset didn’t arrive easily.
“I learned some hard lessons in the last few years, and that was the biggest, most life-altering lesson,” she explains. “When I’m secure with myself, and when I’ve worked through the childhood shame or the things passed down to me that were never actually mine to carry, it changes everything. It’s a daily process that will never be fully done.”
Comfort Food And The “Drew Crew”
Along with building her digital platform and recording podcasts, Bertinelli can be found spreading joy on daytime television. As a regular part of the “Drew Crew” on “The Drew Barrymore Show,” she has found a second, multigenerational family of kindred spirits.
“I just love hanging out with Drew and Ross Mathews and meeting all of the interesting guests,” she says. “I especially love doing the ‘Drew’s News’ segment, because they’re all feel-good stories. In the media environment we’re in right now, I just want to hear things that are going to make me happy and learn practical tips I can use in my daily life.”
The mutual admiration between Bertinelli and Barrymore is palpable.
“Drew is such a connoisseur of food, cooking and cookbooks,” Bertinelli says. “She’s younger than me, but I learn so much from her, and hanging with Ross is a gift — he has this pinpoint, perfect, lightning-fast sense of humor. He makes me laugh so much.”
Drew Barrymore, Valerie Bertinelli and Ross Mathews on ‘The Drew Barrymore Show’
Photo by Ash Bean/The Drew Barrymore Show
Naturally, conversation with Bertinelli often circles back to the kitchen, a place where she feels grounded, despite never having attended culinary school. Her approach to food — learned from her mother, grandmother and aunts and refined through years working alongside professional food stylists in Food Network kitchens — remains deeply emotional.
“Food,” she says simply, “is love to me.”
When family and friends gather at her house, she skips the fuss of elaborate meals in favor of rustic, low-stress comfort. “I like easy things that I can just throw together in a single pot, like soups, stews and turkey chili, which Wolfie has always loved,” she says.
True to her open-minded nature, she is still eager to learn from unexpected sources. She recounts a recent story of going over to her son’s home to practice baking artisanal bread, a skill she picked up from some of his fellow touring musicians. “These guys are amazing, because they bake bread every single day,” Bertinelli says with a laugh. “They taught me how, yet I was still nervous about the whole 24-hour process. I prepped it, let it sit on Wolf’s stove overnight and baked it the next morning. It was delicious.”
Photo by John Russo
The Open Road Ahead
Looking toward the future, Bertinelli says she’s firmly fixed on exploring new horizons, both creatively and geographically.
“I want to travel more,” she explains. “I absolutely love visiting new places. My favorite thing to do is to travel to where Wolf is performing with his band and see him live. I enjoy watching the audience, seeing his different nuances and hearing how remarkably strong his vocals are with every single show.”
The pride Bertinelli feels for her 35-year-old-son, who writes, sings and plays every instrument on his albums, is radiant.
“Wolf completely blows my mind — he does it all,” she says. “Both Ed and I would just look at each other when he was growing up and go, ‘I cannot believe this kid.’ He’s a brilliant musician, but he’s also a great actor and a genuinely kind young man.”
Bertinelli has appeared in one of her son’s music videos — directed by Robert Rodriguez, no less — but she adds that she’d like a little more time on camera with him. “I was just fighting off zombies and vampires,” she remembers, laughing. “I didn’t actually share a scene with Wolf.”
Her itch for acting extends beyond music videos; she recently appeared in the Lifetime feature film “Love, Again,” and she’s ready for more. “Oh, please, yes, yes, yes,” she exclaims. “I want to do more movies, and I’d love to do another television show. We actually have a few show concepts we’re pitching right now to networks and streaming platforms. I will never stop acting. I love it too much.”
Bertinelli also hosts “Still Hot in Cleveland,” a podcast on Valerie’s Place in which she reminisces with executive producer Todd Milliner and others about the sitcom she starred in from 2010 to 2015, “Hot in Cleveland.” And she isn’t slowing down creatively, with more books on the horizon.
“I want to do a new cookbook specifically tied to Valerie’s Place, and I have an idea for a book of letters — letters to myself and to the people I love,” she explains. “I’ve already started sketching it out in my journal.”
Bertinelli’s journey, much like the steep, breathless climbs up the monuments of Paris and Wales, has required real work facing old ghosts and believing in herself. Yet the reward of standing at the top of her game, looking out at the community she has built, is a view worth savoring.