Benjamin Balesteri

The Path

Benjamin Balesteri trained at California Culinary Academy.

The Work Today

Since 2013, Balesteri has served as executive chef at the Sausalito restaurant. The current chapter is not described by a sudden reinvention, but by continuity: a chef returning to a kitchen he knew from an earlier stage, now carrying the responsibility at the top. His own language keeps returning to Italy as a guide for method rather than ornament. The emphasis is on availability, the wild, the garden, and the refusal to overwork food. That belief gives the work its center: choose well, handle carefully, and let the ingredients speak through what is already best in them. He also frames the restaurant as something inherited rather than merely occupied. "This is the tradition of Poggio that I intend to carry on." In that sentence, the executive-chef role becomes less a title than a promise: to keep faith with a way of cooking and gathering that predates the present moment.

Signature

Benjamin's signature dishes include Bollito Misto cart.

In Their Words “Just like the people in Italy, I'm guided by what's available in the wild and in the garden. In Italy, they don't manipulate food, but rather, bring out what's best about it. I do this at Poggio, as well.” “Growing up, great food was important to my family, but it was really about people coming together.”

Acclaim

The clearest marker of Balesteri’s standing is the leadership he has held since 2013, after prior service in the same Sausalito kitchen and an opening role at Lincoln in New York. His career reads as a progression from training, to sous-chef responsibility, to the discipline of opening a major kitchen, to a long-running executive-chef post. That form of recognition is practical and demanding. It is earned service by service, through consistency, judgment, and the ability to hold a restaurant’s identity steady while making the work feel alive each day.