Ben Sukle

The Path

The line taught the basics, and the ladder after that gave the work its shape: dishwasher and bun loader at Red Robin, then La Laiterie at the Farmstead, stager at Noma in Copenhagen, and a member of the opening team at The Dorrance in Providence. Ben Sukle’s route shows how repetition hardens into technique when a cook stays with the work long enough to build speed, control, and a usable vocabulary in the kitchen. Johnson & Wales University set the formal base, but the career reads through the rooms that followed. In 2013, Ben became chef at Birch in Providence, later chef at Gift Horse in Providence. Today, Ben is chef of Oberlin. The through-line is less about escalation than continuity: keeping the work close to Providence while sharpening the same set of habits across different kitchens and formats.

The Work Today

The cooking is defined by a narrow set of materials: Narragansett Bay seafood, handmade pastas, and breads. In Ben Sukle’s hands, those elements are the point of reference for the menu, not accents around it. The seafood ties the work to Rhode Island waters; the pasta and bread point to the slower, more manual side of the trade, where consistency and touch carry the result. Small plates keep that logic moving. The format allows the kitchen to shift from one texture or season to the next without losing pace, and it keeps the table moving through a sequence of deliberate decisions. The effect is compact, but the craft is in the assembly: each plate working as part of a larger rhythm rather than as a standalone statement. Gift Horse sits in the same Providence run, opened in 2023 as his latest venture. Ben Sukle described the arrangement in plain terms: “They will be two concepts under the same roof with a cool little walkway between the two.” It’s a useful bit of operational language—distinct rooms, shared address, and enough separation to let each concept hold its own.

In Their Words “They will be two concepts under the same roof with a cool little walkway between the two.” “It will be a nice, social environment.”