Thomas McNaughton

The Training The path begins at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, a school that gives a cook not only technique but also a shared language: stations, repetition, timing, the physical grammar of service. A cook learns from a place, then becomes part of what the next cook learns from.

The Lineage That specialty has remained the clearest craft note attached to him. Pasta is intimate work, built from flour, water, pressure, rest, and touch; it is also a form with memory, carrying regional habits and kitchen preferences through the hands of the person making it.

The Table The pairing of those responsibilities places him at both the stove-side and business-side center of the house, with the restaurant’s identity tied to the same craft that defines his public work. The connective thread is not a list of titles alone. It is the movement from school to kitchen, from Executive Chef in 2006 to co-founder, from pasta as specialty to leadership as responsibility. The family story here is professional rather than genealogical: technique learned, pressure absorbed, a restaurant shaped, and a San Francisco hospitality group built around the work.

Signature

Thomas's signature dishes include Flour + Water: Pasta, Tagliatelle Bolognese, Burrata triangoli with preserved lemon, summer squash, mint, Bigoli with Fresh Shelling Beans, Tomato, Pancetta, and Mortadella Fattisu with Pistachios.

In Their Words “Thinking of ways to utilize the whole animal, which is a sort of self-inflicted confinement, breeds creativity.” “I got the job for the extra cash, but I thoroughly enjoyed the excitement of working in a fast-paced kitchen.”