Chef
Chad Palagi
Chef de Cuisine, Per Se
- Discipline
- Chef
- Based in
- New York City, New York, United States
- Venue
- Per Se · Restaurant
Known for
- Chef de Cuisine at Per Se, New York
i. Biography
Professional formation in fine dining often starts with systems: school, station work, repetition, and the pressure of service. For Chad Palagi, that formation runs through Napa Valley Cooking School in St. Helena, the Thomas Keller Restaurant Group, and a return to a kitchen built on daily refinement and changing menus.
The Climb
Fine-dining technique entered the record through Napa Valley Cooking School, followed by Per Se in New York City, where Chad Palagi worked as commis (2012–2017) and rose to Sous Chef, serving in that role until 2017. The room’s demands—speed without looseness, repetition without drift, restraint under pressure—made station discipline part of the work rather than background. Precision in that kind of kitchen is not decorative. It is prep held to standard, sauces and seasoning kept consistent, and ideas converted into finished plates during service. In 2017, Palagi took that operating discipline west as Chef de Cuisine at Rich Table in Bay Area (2017–2021), adding leadership responsibility inside a serious, ingredient-led kitchen. Returning to Per Se as Chef de Cuisine (since 2021) put that experience back into the New York City dining room where the earlier station work was built. The move reads less as a reset than as a continuation: a cook bringing broader range and steadier command back into a kitchen that already requires both.
Where They Are Now
Tasting-menu work inside the Thomas Keller Restaurant Group depends on alignment across the brigade. As Chef de Cuisine of Per Se, Palagi guides a kitchen whose menus change from day to day, with product, timing, and the pace of the room shaping the work. The menu functions as a daily working document, not a fixed script. Modern American cooking with a touch of French influence defines the register. In Palagi’s hands at Per Se, that means American recipes read through technique, season, and the structure of a tasting menu rather than through a single national frame. A sauce reference, a vegetable at the right point, or the architecture of a plate can carry as much force as the principal ingredient. Kitchen leadership is part of the craft in a restaurant organized around progression and detail. Palagi leads collaboratively, with attention to teamwork and to the connection between kitchen and dining room, so cooking and service remain joined. The plate is finished only when the intention of the kitchen survives the handoff to the dining room. Ingredient timing also frames the work. For a Per Se x Norwich Meadows Farm collaboration, Palagi helped create a six-course tasting menu centered on peak summer produce, including squash blossoms and heirloom tomatoes.
Credentials
A signature work tied to Palagi, Prime Rib of Elysian Fields Farm Lamb with Glazed Petite Carrots, Creamed Peas and Paloise Gastrique, shows the operating grammar: luxury product, composed accompaniments, and a French sauce reference held in balance. The plate points to structure as much as flavor, with richness, vegetable sweetness, and acidity organized rather than stacked. The Norwich Meadows Farm menu marks another part of the practice: using the tasting-menu format to hold produce at a seasonal high point. In the six-course collaboration Palagi helped shape, squash blossoms and heirloom tomatoes were not supporting details; they set the frame.
Profile updated July 2026
FAQ
Asked of Chad
Where did Chad Palagi train or study?
Chad Palagi trained at Napa Valley Cooking School.
What is Chad Palagi known for?
Daily changing tasting menus at Per Se.
