Karyn Tomlinson

The Path

Training and service form the spine of Karyn Tomlinson’s kitchen language. Northwestern University and Le Cordon Bleu Paris gave her the formal base; Meritage and Borough put that base into daily repetition; Maaemo in Oslo added a staging point for precision and place. At Corner Table in Minneapolis, the work shifted into leadership, with the kitchen / head chef role carrying both service discipline and creative responsibility. At Myriel in Saint Paul, Tomlinson has held that accumulated discipline since 2021 as chef-owner. The restaurant reads as the product of line work, study, and management rather than a single style gesture: controlled, grounded, and built to be lived in.

The Work Today

Hospitality, in Tomlinson’s own framing, is not separate from the work of cooking; it is the point of it. She describes food as an artistic expression with its strongest value in bringing people together, which places the plate in active use rather than display. That stance keeps the restaurant grounded in service, where technique is measured by what it can hold between the kitchen and the table. The same logic extends outward to the people who grow the ingredients. Tomlinson draws a direct line between hospitality and the livelihoods behind the farm, treating the dining room as one place where labor, landscape, and cooking meet. In that structure, Myriel becomes less a stage than a working relay of local production, kitchen judgment, and shared meal.

Signature

Karyn's signature dishes include Summer Sausage with Housemade Mustard, Beet with Smoked Lamb, Birch Cream, Sunflower Seed, Kohlrabi Tartare with Daikon, and Onion Consommé with Whey-Soured Onions and Duck Fat. Taken together, they point to a kitchen working in contrast rather than excess: smoke against sweetness, root against brightness, and richness kept in check by acidity and restraint. The throughline is French-influenced, but the register stays local and specific.

In Their Words “I don't see food as art in a gallery. Food is an artistic expression that's really where food can have the greatest and best potential, I think, in bringing people together.” “I saw the connection really early on between a lifestyle of hospitality... And people whose livelihoods it was to grow food from the farm we work with.”

Acclaim

Karyn's honors include James Beard Award for Best Chef: Midwest (2025), Food & Wine Best New Chef (2024), and Cochon 555 Grand Cochon prize.