Chef
Gabriel Stulman
- Discipline
- Chef
- Based in
- New York City, New York, United States
i. Biography
Gabriel Stulman runs Happy Cooking Hospitality in New York City, United States, but the work reads less like a corporate umbrella than a set of tightly held neighborhood rooms. The scale is there in the title; the method is in the rooms themselves—places shaped by the block they sit on, the regulars who return, and the daily tempo of the city around them.
Coming Up
University of Wisconsin–Madison was an early training ground before the longer education that followed in service. From there, restaurant worker / bartender work in Fairfax, Virginia in Fairfax, Virginia gave Stulman the practical repetition of the floor and the bar, where hospitality is measured shift by shift. That groundwork later carried into ownership in New York City, where founder/owner roles at Little Owl and Market Table helped establish a style built on neighborhood knowledge, direct service, and attention to the people who actually use the room. Today, Stulman is founder and CEO of Happy Cooking Hospitality, as well as owner/manager of Joseph Leonard (since 2009), founder/owner of Jeffrey's Grocery, founder/owner of Fairfax, and founder/owner of Sailor (since 2023). Read together, those names describe a body of work focused on continuity: restaurants built with a sense of place, then kept active through routine, repeat business, and the maintenance that makes a room feel inhabited rather than staged.
Where They Are Now
At Happy Cooking Hospitality, the job is site selection as much as operations, and Stulman frames that work in terms of corners, traffic, and the neighborhood trade that keeps a room alive. He has said, "I've been fortunate to get to work with spaces that are in great corners, have a lot of foot traffic, a diverse demographic, and people that genuinely want to support their neighborhood establishments." The principle is plain: the right location is not just a lease decision, but part of the restaurant’s daily relationship with the street. That logic carries through the rest of the group. The model is not spectacle; it is familiarity, built over lunches, late-night drinks, and the repeat gestures that make a place legible to its regulars. In Stulman’s hands, a restaurant functions as an ongoing arrangement with its neighborhood, held together by consistency and use rather than declaration.
In Their Words “I've been fortunate to get to work with spaces that are in great corners, have a lot of foot traffic, a diverse demographic, and people that genuinely want to support their neighborhood establishments.” “There's something that sounds almost arrogant about it. To me, I have a family of restaurants.”
Profile updated July 2026
FAQ
Asked of Gabriel
What is Gabriel Stulman's current role?
As of 2026, Gabriel Stulman is CEO and Founder.
Where did Gabriel Stulman train or study?
Gabriel Stulman trained at University of Wisconsin–Madison.
What recognition has Gabriel Stulman received?
Restaurateur of the Year (2012).
