Daisy Ryan

The Path

Service training can shape a cook’s eye as much as a kitchen apprenticeship, and Daisy Ryan’s early work reflects that kind of cross-training. She studied at the Culinary Institute of America at Hyde Park, then moved into front-of-house at Per Se in New York City, where precision, timing, and dining room discipline would have sharpened her sense of how hospitality is built course by course. helped open The Line Hotel in Los Angeles, California, a role that added experience in launching a room within a larger operation. She later oversaw the beverage program at McGuire Moorman Hospitality in Austin, Texas, work that placed her closer to the mechanics of pacing, balance, and what the guest experiences before the first plate lands.

The Work Today

At Bell’s in Los Alamos, California, Daisy Ryan is Executive Chef and co-owner, and those titles signal both authorship and accountability. Bell’s is where the training at the Culinary Institute of America at Hyde Park, the front-of-house discipline of Per Se in New York City, the opening work in 2014 in Koreatown at Roy Choi in Los Angeles, California, and the beverage perspective from McGuire Moorman Hospitality in Austin, Texas meet in one ongoing operation. That combination reads as a practical hospitality profile: service awareness, beverage literacy, and kitchen leadership held together in one place. Executive Chef and co-owner is a structure that requires both creative decisions and day-to-day stewardship, the kind of split responsibility that defines how a restaurant holds its line over time. Ryan has also been plain about where her own knowledge stops. On Nick Ramirez at Na Na Thai, she has said, “What Nick Ramirez does at Na Na Thai is something that I truly know nothing about.” The remark lands as peer-level respect: an acknowledgment that technique and range are specific, and that expertise in one corner of the trade does not flatten the rest of it.

In Their Words “What Nick Ramirez does at Na Na Thai is something that I truly know nothing about.”

Acclaim

Daisy’s honors include Michelin star (2021) and Food & Wine Best New Chef (2020). The recognition tracks a career that has moved steadily through service, beverage, and chef leadership, with Bell’s in Los Alamos, California serving as the place where those skills have been made visible at the level of national notice.