Hillary Sterling

The Climb

At Vic’s, A Voce, Lupa Osteria Romana, and Mesa Grill, Hillary Sterling worked as partner and chef in rooms that each asked for a different kind of control. The common ground was pace: service that turns quickly, kitchens that stay disciplined under pressure, and the steady reading of a dining room while it keeps moving. Across those posts, the work built a polished base in the habits that keep a restaurant functioning well from the inside out. What accumulates in a run like that is less a single style than a set of instincts. Sterling’s authority reads as earned through repetition, not presentation, with pace, precision, and presence coming forward as skills shaped in demanding rooms rather than adopted later as image. That background now sits at Ci Siamo, where Hillary Sterling is executive chef and the experience from those earlier kitchens informs the way the work is held together.

Today

At Ci Siamo, the executive-chef role is where those earlier years resolve into daily practice. Menu planning, by Sterling’s account, often happens in motion: “I do a lot of my best menu planning toward the end of my runs, where I’m running through dishes in my head and nothing else is in my way.” The method is plain enough. Movement clears the head, and the work settles into focus when there is nothing left to do but think through the next plate.

Signature

Hillary's signature dishes include rainbow cookies and Ammazza!.

In Their Words “I do a lot of my best menu planning toward the end of my runs, where I’m running through dishes in my head and nothing else is in my way.” “There's nothing like the act of asking someone to pass the butter and striking up a conversation.”

Recognition

Sterling’s public voice keeps returning to the social mechanics of dining: the pass of the butter, the start of a conversation, the small exchanges that turn a meal into service with texture. “There's nothing like the act of asking someone to pass the butter and striking up a conversation.” That kind of observation matches the line running through her career, where restaurants are understood as working systems of motion, exchange, and attention, not just places where plates leave the kitchen.