Laurent Gras

Coming Up

Technique starts with the school and the room: École Hôtelière, Nice, France gave Laurent Gras the formal base, and the kitchens that followed sharpened it. At Lucas Carton in France, he worked as chef de partie, then moved into Head Chef posts at Restaurant Guy Savoy in France and Hotel de Paris Monaco, before taking the opening Head Chef role at Restaurant Alain Ducasse Paris, France. Each post sat inside a different kind of pressure—service speed, precision, luxury, launch conditions—but the common requirement was the same: French method, executed cleanly. That foundation traveled well. As Executive Chef at Peacock Alley, Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York, New York, United States (1997–2001), Gras brought French training into a large, high-expectation hotel setting. He followed at The Fifth Floor in San Francisco, California, United States, then moved to L2O in Chicago, Illinois, United States (2008–2010), and later Saison in San Francisco, California, United States, where he worked first as co-Executive Chef at Saison in San Francisco, California, United States (until 2020) and then as Executive Chef at Saison in San Francisco, California, United States (2019–2020). The throughline is a kitchen vocabulary built in France and carried into American rooms with different scales, diners, and constraints.

Where They Are Now

His most recent listed post was Executive Chef at Saison in San Francisco. The work he has described from that period stays close to French technique, but pushes the result toward more powerful, exciting flavors. That balance is the point: structure first, then force, brightness, and a wider register of taste.

Signature

My Provence and lamb marinated in jasmine tea with sweet pea sauce show the range in Laurent Gras’s cooking without departing from the base. One name points directly to place; the other pairs lamb with jasmine tea and sweet pea sauce in a combination that leans on contrast rather than excess. The signatures hold onto French structure while making room for fragrance and sharper flavor movement.

In Their Words “It's grounded in French technique but with more powerful, exciting flavors.”