Will Guidara

The Path

Hotel and restaurant administration provided the technical base: Cornell University School of Hotel Administration (2001) gave Will Guidara the operating vocabulary of lodging, dining, and guest care. The craft then moved from classroom to floor through his dining room career role at Spago in Beverly Hills, where service depended on pacing, table-reading, arrival, exit, and the discipline of keeping a room in motion without showing the strain. Restaurant culture and consistency became the next material through various roles at Union Square Hospitality Group. At Eleven Madison Park in New York City, the dining room standard tightened when Will Guidara became General Manager (from 2006), placing service at the center of a closely watched New York City restaurant where gesture, timing, and memory carried weight alongside the kitchen. Scale changed the work without changing the core problem. As co-owner at Make It Nice hospitality group (2011–2019), co-owner at Eleven Madison Park in New York City (2011–2019), co-owner at NoMad New York in New York City (2012–2019), co-owner at NoMad Bar in New York City (2014–2019), co-owner at Made Nice in New York City (2017–2019), co-owner at NoMad Los Angeles in Los Angeles (2018–2019), and co-owner at NoMad Las Vegas in Las Vegas (2018–2019), Will Guidara worked across rooms with different formats and demands. The through-line was the operating question every service team knows: what does the guest carry out of the room besides the check and the memory of the plate? Hospitality now extends beyond the restaurant floor through writing and advisory work. As author of Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect (since 2022), Will Guidara codifies service as a repeatable practice rather than a mood. As strategic partner of Aramark Sports + Entertainment / Athletics planned New Las Vegas Stadium (since 2025), he applies that same guest-experience lens to a larger public setting.

The Work Today

The working principle is stated plainly: “We can inspire people to be better versions of themselves through our attention to detail or our creativity.” In service terms, that means noticing before being asked, making the room feel personal without overhandling it, and using imagination only when it improves the guest’s experience.

Signature

The named touchstones — Unreasonable Hospitality, Eleven Madison Park: The Cookbook, I Love New York: Ingredients and Recipes, The NoMad Cookbook, and Eleven Madison Park: The Next Chapter — show how restaurant work can be translated into print and public language. In Will Guidara’s case, the page becomes another service surface: a way to carry standards, point of view, and guest-facing philosophy beyond the dining room while keeping the work grounded in restaurant practice.

In Their Words “We can inspire people to be better versions of themselves through our attention to detail or our creativity.” “We’re really excited to be in LA. It’s a great time to be here.”

Acclaim

Recognition has come through service, bar, wine, restaurant, and broader innovation categories: James Beard Foundation Award – Outstanding Service, Eleven Madison Park (2016), James Beard Foundation Award – Outstanding Bar Program, NoMad New York (2014), NoMad New York, 1 Michelin star (2013), Eleven Madison Park, 3 Michelin stars (2012), James Beard Foundation Award – Outstanding Wine Service, Eleven Madison Park (2008), and Wall Street Journal – Innovator Awards (2016). For peers in the trade, the pattern is clear: the awards mark not only food and drink programs, but the disciplined handling of a room — wine service with structure, bar service with identity, and hospitality precise enough to register as part of the craft.