Sebastien Salomon

Sebastien Salomon is a Haitian chef whose work brings Haitian cuisine into a defined tasting-menu format in Washington, DC. His cooking draws from Port-au-Prince family memory, formal culinary training, government and embassy kitchens, Gravitas DC, corporate cooking, and the discipline required to move between institutional service and composed restaurant work. The result is Haitian gastronomy presented with structure, regional attention, and fine-dining technique.

Salomon’s early kitchen education began with formal training at the Art Institute of Philadelphia, where he completed a culinary arts degree. He also started in entry-level labor as a dishwasher in the United States, learning kitchen order through pace, repetition, heat, urgency, and the expectation that every station affects service. Work in high-volume hotel and chain restaurant kitchens built consistency, timing, and speed, while also preparing him for roles where food carries institutional meaning.

He went on to chef roles in hotel and chain restaurant kitchens before serving as head chef at The White House in Washington, D.C., and resident chef at the Embassy of Haiti in Washington, D.C. Those positions placed cooking inside protocol, identity, and representation. Corporate chef work, a sous chef role at Gravitas DC in Washington, D.C., and a competitor appearance at The Food Network added further experience in scale, fine-dining pressure, and public performance.

His current project is Itiyah, where he is chef opening the restaurant. In this setting, Haitian fine dining is organized as a multi-course tasting menu inspired by Haiti’s 10 regions. The restaurant frames Haitian cuisine as regional, technical, historical, and varied rather than as a single flavor profile. Bread service sets the tone with warm coconut milk brioche and housemade focaccia served with truffle epis butter, roasted pepper-caramelized plantain butter, and epis oil.

The format is familiar to tasting-menu dining, but the reference points remain distinctly Haitian through epis, plantain, coconut milk, pepper, and aromatic fat. Other courses continue the same approach. Haitian spaghetti “explosion” reworks Haitian breakfast spaghetti into a handmade raviolo with smoked herring, peppers, sofrito flavors, chorizo crumble, finger lime pearls, and cured egg yolk. The dish keeps the original idea recognizable while concentrating smoke, salinity, citrus, spice, and richness inside a pasta format.

Another course pairs grilled pigeon with caramelized leek and breadfruit purée, compressed sour cherry, pressure-cooked onion bulb, culantro-watercress-lime gel, and pigeon jus, using acidity, herbs, texture, and jus to frame the bird. Salomon describes the work as a way to offer guests a deeper understanding of Haitian cuisine and to tell Haiti’s story while honoring its soul, elevating its cuisine, and defining its place in fine dining.

His signature move is translation: recognizable Haitian flavors and references are brought into composed formats without being detached from their source ideas.