Lon Symensma

The Path

Lon Symensma’s path began at Louisa Muscatine High School and continued through the Culinary Institute of America, before his work reached the Culinary Olympics, where he earned a silver medal (1996). Those milestones sketch the outline of a chef who built his career on discipline, technique, and ambition, moving from formal training into the competitive precision of a world where details matter. The dates and institutions are part of the map, but so too is the sense of a professional arc shaped by serious preparation and steady advancement.

The Work Today

Today, Symensma is Executive Chef and founder of ChoLon Restaurant Concepts in Denver, where the name itself has become associated with a distinctive approach to Modern Asian cuisine. The cooking translates the flavors, textures, colors, and stories of the Far East into dishes that land as layered rather than literal, with Modern Asian cuisine as the through-line rather than a loose label. There is a directness in the way he frames the work, and that clarity carries through the restaurant’s character: grounded in ingredients, attentive to technique, structure, and the emotional weight of the finished plate. His own phrasing is succinct: “ChoLon showcases my Asian ingredients and French cooking.” The sentence sets the terms of the kitchen. Asian ingredients provide the base; French cooking provides form, precision, and discipline; and the result is food that holds material and memory at once. That balance gives the work its identity, letting it read as carefully composed without losing warmth or immediacy. A named example is Larb Salad Lettuce Cups, a home-friendly take on his Thai Brussels Sprouts. Even in its title, the dish shows the way Symensma moves between restaurant finish and approachable comfort. Leaf and salad, heat and crunch, a familiar structure carrying the mark of something more specific: a dish that can move beyond the dining room while still keeping its origin intact.

Signature

Lon's signature dishes include soup dumplings, Thai Brussels Sprouts, and Larb Salad Lettuce Cups. Each one reflects the same instinct toward contrast and clarity, with flavors that are vivid but controlled, and forms that invite both curiosity and recognition.

In Their Words “ChoLon showcases my Asian ingredients and French cooking.”

Acclaim

Symensma’s career includes kitchen leadership in New York City and Denver. Set beside his 1999 Culinary Institute of America graduation and his restaurant work, that experience belongs to the same larger arc: technical training, restaurant leadership, and ownership carried into founding. It is a trajectory that feels deliberate, built step by step, and sustained by the same blend of rigor and imagination that defines his cooking.