Gabino Sotelino

Gabino Sotelino serves as senior vice president at Lettuce Entertain You Restaurants, but the work that brought him there was built long before that title. In Madrid, discipline came first: seminary at nine, hotel service at 12, apprenticeship at 13. Raised in Spain, Sotelino entered the San Francisco el Grande seminary in Madrid at age nine. He left at 12 and moved into the Hotel Ritz as a bellhop, then began apprenticing at 13. Much of his training took place in France, where professional standards and repetition left their mark on his approach. The route was strict, early, and practical: learn the room, learn the work, learn how service and kitchen labor depend on each other. Chicago became the decisive American chapter in 1980, when Sotelino became chef and partner at Ambria. That role put him inside both the kitchen’s daily discipline and the larger decisions that shape a restaurant’s life. Even with authority over the room, the work still carried the pull of the line itself, a balance he described plainly: “Although nothing at Ambria was ever done without my approval, I missed being in the kitchen on a day-to-day basis.”