The People · Page 13
The artisans of taste.
Chef
Tom Kerridge
Marlow, United Kingdom
## The Climb The route into professional kitchens moved from performance to the pass without making performance the point. Tom Kerridge appeared in front of the camera as a child…
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Chef
Xavier Pellicer
Barcelona, Spain
Xavier Pellicer’s career reads as a clean progression through rank and responsibility: chef at Can Fabes in Sant Celoni, executive chef at ABaC in Barcelona, then chef-owner of…
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Chef
Benoît Sinthon
Funchal, Portugal
## Coming Up Since 2004, Benoît Sinthon has been chef of Il Gallo d'Oro. In a trade defined by repetition and standards held over time, that kind of tenure is a working fact: it…
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Chef
LG Han
Singapore, Singapore
## Coming Up Labyrinth in Singapore is the fixed point in LG Han’s practice. Founded in 2014 and still led by Han, the restaurant has carried his authorship from opening to the…
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Chef
Romain Fornell
Barcelona, Spain
French technique can travel without becoming detached from place. In Barcelona, Caelis gives that proposition a working address: Romain Fornell, Owner and Chef, operates from a…
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SG Group Founder & Bartender
Shingo Gokan
Shanghai, China
Shingo Gokan is the founder and representative of SG Group and one of the leading figures in international bartending. He won the Bacardi Legacy Cocktail Competition in 2012, was…
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Chef
Fabio Bragagnolo
Porto-Vecchio, France
Fabio Bragagnolo’s cooking at Casadelmar in Porto-Vecchio, France, is built on Mediterranean structure: local and seasonal ingredients, fresh fish, and Corsican produce handled…
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Chef
Il Hoon Kang
Big Sur, California, United States
The mandate at Sierra Mar is specific: advance the restaurant without breaking its line, keep faith with place, and cook to the table in front of you. In that setting, Il Hoon…
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Chef
Jan Sobecki
Heeze, Netherlands
Jan Sobecki runs Tribeca in Heeze, Netherlands, with a kitchen built around freshness, flavour, and a disciplined line from idea to plate. The work reads as controlled rather than…
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Chef
Josh Harris
San Francisco, California, United States
## The Path Service mechanics are learned at floor level, and Josh Harris started there in San Francisco as a bar back, working the back end of the room before moving into the…
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Chef
JP McMahon
Galway, Ireland
“I started working in kitchens when I was fifteen,” JP McMahon says, and the line reads less like anecdote than a statement of entry into the trade. That early start set the terms…
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Chef
Juan Carlos García
Baeza, Spain
Juan Carlos García is the chef of Vandelvira in Baeza, a post he has held since 2022, but the work reads first as craft formation. The family business gave him his earliest…
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Chef
Julian Stowasser
Hamburg, Germany
Julian Stowasser, Head Chef of Lakeside in Hamburg, has built a career that feels deliberate rather than hurried, each step laid down with the steadiness of a well-run kitchen…
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Chef
Kane Williams
Aughton, United Kingdom
Kane Williams’s 2023 appointment as Head Chef at The Barn at Moor Hall in Aughton, Lancashire, United Kingdom, sat within a modern British kitchen lineage built on exacting mise…
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Chef & Co-Owner, Maison Rostang
Nicolas Beaumann
Paris, France
Nicolas Beaumann, born in 1979 in Boulogne-Billancourt, France, began his culinary career with apprenticeships at small Parisian establishments including Le Picton and A.…
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Chef
Pía Salazar
Quito, Ecuador
## The Path Trained in Switzerland and at Astrid & Gastón in Quito. that supports her work in pastry, and the range to move past pure repetition. That training was followed by…
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Chef
Steven Molnar
Toronto, Canada
His purpose is direct: “I strive to change the general perception surrounding Mexican cuisine by showcasing unique flavor combinations and seasonal products.” In Steven Molnar’s…
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Chef
Uroš Fakuc
Nova Gorica, Slovenia
Slovenian chef Uroš Fakuc leads Dam in Nova Gorica, Slovenia, with a Mediterranean-modern line that gives the cooking a clear frame. The work sits between tradition and innovation…
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Chef
Yosuke Suga
Tokyo, Japan
Yosuke Suga has led SUGALABO in Tokyo, Japan since 2015. The work traces a line through exacting kitchens and formal service structures, with discipline and precision carrying…
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Chef
Angelo Wong
Macau, Macau
## The Climb Angelo Wong’s career maps the discipline of high-end hotel kitchens in Hong Kong and Macau: repetition, service tempo, and standards that leave little room for drift.…
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Winemaker and Master Blender, González Byass
Antonio Flores
Jerez, Spain
Antonio Flores is the winemaker and master blender at González Byass in Jerez. A central figure in the house's sherry program, he interprets the vineyards, biological ageing under…
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Chef
Brent Lukoni
Vancouver, Canada
## Coming Up At AnnaLena, the restaurant chef role is the clearest public marker of Brent Lukoni’s work. In a dining room where kitchen discipline and room tone have to read as…
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Chef
Ken Sakamoto
Kyoto, Japan
## The Ascent Italian heritage cuisine in Kyoto requires translation without dilution: structure, pasta logic, aroma, and restraint have to sit inside a kitchen culture built…
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Co-Executive Chef, Le Pavillon at One Vanderbilt; Chef and Co-Owner, Twist Catering
Michael Balboni
New York City, New York, United States
Michael Balboni is a Chef and Co-Owner of Twist Catering, and Co-Executive Chef of Le Pavillon at One Vanderbilt in Midtown Manhattan. A graduate of the Culinary Institute of…
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Chef
Seiichi Honda
Tokyo, Japan
Owner-Chef Seiichi Honda of ZURRIOLA in Tokyo has built a practice by moving through kitchens where discipline mattered: French training, European rigor, Basque technique, then…
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Winemaker and Assistant Master Blender, González Byass
Silvia Flores
Jerez, Spain
Silvia Flores is a third-generation winemaker and assistant master blender at González Byass in Jerez. She joined the company in 2017 after experience in hospitality and wine…
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Executive Chef, Le Pavillon
Will Nacev
New York City, New York, United States
Will Nacev is the Executive Chef at Le Pavillon, a seafood and vegetable-focused French restaurant in Manhattan's One Vanderbilt skyscraper, led by Daniel Boulud. He was…
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Chef
Adam Dahlberg
Stockholm, Sweden
Adam Albin in Stockholm, Sweden, is built on precise, instinctive á la minute cooking, with the kitchen organized around the finest ingredients available at the moment. In a city…
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Chef
Albin Wessman
Stockholm, Sweden
Of the restaurant’s direction, Albin Wessman has said, "Everything is new, but we’ve carried our DNA with us from Adam/Albin. We hope guests will still recognize us." ## The Climb…
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Chef
Eric Fernez
Baudour, Belgium
The defining fact of Eric Fernez’s work is its concentration: one chef, one kitchen, one Belgian address. That kind of continuity is a craft choice. It points to a practice built…
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Chef
Jan Tournier
Lommel, Belgium
## Coming Up At Het Gebaar in Antwerp, Belgium, Jan Tournier established the controlled, exacting method that later defined his work. The standard there was not only precision,…
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Chef
Marcos Granda
Marbella, Spain
His work is organized around hospitality, product, elegance, and seasonality. In practice, that means attention to the room, discipline in service, and a way of cooking that…
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Chef
Patrick Guilbaud
Dublin, Ireland
French proprietor Patrick Guilbaud arrived in Dublin in 1981 with a fixed brief: to bring fine dining into the city and to make it part of the working standard. The work that…
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Chef
Pedro Aguilera
Alcalá del Valle, Spain
## The Climb A family dining room can be a first school. In Pedro Aguilera’s case, Mesón Sabor Andaluz in Alcalá del Valle, Spain, supplied the early grammar: service rhythms,…
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Chef
David Everitt-Matthias
Cheltenham, United Kingdom
## The Climb Long training in London gave David Everitt-Matthias the base for a career built on repetition, pace and exacting standards. Work at the Inn on the Park in London…
View →Co-Founder and Wine Director, AngloThai
Desiree Chantarasak
London, United Kingdom
Desiree Chantarasak is co-founder and wine director of AngloThai in London. She leads front of house and the wine program, favouring low-intervention British and European…
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Co-Founder, Line and Three Cents
Dimitris Dafopoulos
Athens, Greece
Dimitris Dafopoulos is an Athens beverage entrepreneur and co-founder of Line and Three Cents Artisanal Beverages. He joined Vasilis Kyritsis and Nikos Bakoulis to open Line in…
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Chef
Fabio Pineda
Nassau, Bahamas
Fabio Pineda’s 2024 appointment as Executive Chef at Rosewood Baha Mar in Nassau, The Bahamas, sits on a long run of kitchen leadership built across continents. The work is…
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James Beard Award winner
Gregory Gourdet
Portland, Oregon, United States
“We don’t have to eat everything. We can just taste a little of everything.” For Gregory Gourdet, that line lands less as branding than as kitchen discipline: curiosity with a…
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John Chantarasak
London, United Kingdom
Liverpool-born John Chantarasak is co-founder and chef-owner of AngloThai in London, which he runs with his wife Desiree. Their permanent Marylebone restaurant opened in November…
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Chef de Cuisine, The Counter
Mitja Birlo
Zürich, Switzerland
Mitja Birlo is the Chef de Cuisine at The Counter in Zurich, Switzerland, following his role as chef at the two-Michelin-starred 7132 Silver in Vals. Born in 1985 in Berlin, he…
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Chef
Nicholas Pena Alvarez
St. George's, Grenada
## The Essentials Born and raised in Vancouver, Canada, Nicholas Pena Alvarez took the Executive Chef role at Calabash Hotel in Grenada in 2024. The kitchen there is built around…
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Executive Chef, Herons at The Umstead
Steven Devereaux Greene
Raleigh, North Carolina, United States
Executive Chef of Herons at The Umstead Hotel and Spa.
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Chef
Varanya Geyoonsawat
Portland, Oregon, United States
## Coming Up Le Cordon Bleu provided the formal base for Varanya Geyoonsawat’s work, and the move into professional kitchens followed with the kind of steady pace that reads as…
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Head Chef, IGNIV by Andreas Caminada, Zürich
Daniel Zeindlhofer
Zürich, Switzerland
Daniel Zeindlhofer is an Austrian chef and head chef at IGNIV by Andreas Caminada in Zürich, Switzerland, where he has led the kitchen to achieve two Michelin stars and 17 Gault…
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Chef
Gabriele Di Leandro
Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Gabriele Di Leandro’s work at Taverna 58 sits in the lane of custodianship: keeping a familiar Pescara address legible while moving it into a new management phase. As owner and…
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Chef & Owner, Alma
Henrique Sá Pessoa
Lisbon, Portugal
Portuguese gastronomy functions here as a working vocabulary rather than a closed canon. In Henrique Sá Pessoa’s case, that vocabulary has been tested through Lisbon,…
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Chef
Nicolas Stamm
Obernai, France
Nicolas Stamm is chef and co-owner of La Fourchette des Ducs in Obernai, a role he has held since 2005. In that span, the restaurant’s identity has been built through his…
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Alexandros Tselepis
Athens, Greece
Alexandros Tselepis is a bartender and co-founder of The Bar in Front of the Bar in Athens. He launched the project with Konstantinos Theodorakopoulos and Symeon Papanikolaou as a…
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Chef
Christina Rasmussen
Singapore, Singapore
Chef-owner Christina Rasmussen brings a kitchen-and-floor perspective to Fura in Singapore, where co-ownership and head-chef duties have sat with her since 2023. The work reads as…
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Konstantinos Theodorakopoulos
Athens, Greece
Konstantinos Theodorakopoulos is a bartender and co-founder of The Bar in Front of the Bar in Athens. He launched the project with Alexandros Tselepis and Symeon Papanikolaou as a…
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Chef
Peter Cuong Franklin
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Ănăn Saigon, in Ho Chi Minh City, is built around speed, density, and proximity to the street. In Peter Cuong Franklin’s hands, the restaurant becomes a place where Vietnamese…
View →Co-Founder, The Bar in Front of the Bar
Symeon Papanikolaou
Athens, Greece
Symeon Papanikolaou is a bartender and co-founder of The Bar in Front of the Bar in Athens. He launched the project with Alexandros Tselepis and Konstantinos Theodorakopoulos as a…
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Chef
Asimakis Chaniotis
London, United Kingdom
Greek cooking in London has to answer two pressures at once: the pull of memory and the discipline of a professional dining room. Since 2025, Executive Chef/Owner of Myrtos by…
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Co-Creator and Chef-Owner, FIERRO
Carito Lourenço
València, Spain
Córdoba-born Carito Lourenço is the co-creator and chef-owner of FIERRO in Valencia. She leads the restaurant and its parent company Tándem Gastronómico with her partner Germán…
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Chef
Daigo Sakai
Fukuoka, Japan
## The Climb Sushi training shows in the repetition of the work: the cut, the press, the handoff, done the same way until the movement holds under pressure. Daigo Sakai’s first…
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Chef
Dani López
San Sebastián, Spain
From San Sebastián to Luis Irizar and into Kokotxa, Dani López has built a practice shaped by continuity rather than turnover. The throughline is Basque cuisine and pintxos, with…
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Chef
Francisco Sixtos
Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
Head Chef at Cocina de Autor in Los Cabos, Mexico, Francisco Sixtos works in creative cuisine with a concise, ingredient-led signature. His Yellow Corn Velouté brings shiitake…
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Co-Creator and Chef-Owner, FIERRO
Germán Carrizo
València, Spain
Germán Carrizo is the co-creator and chef-owner of FIERRO in Valencia. Raised in Mendoza, Argentina, he leads FIERRO and the wider Tándem Gastronómico group with Carito Lourenço,…
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Chef
Kurt Amidzich
Tokyo, Japan
## The Climb Executive discipline took shape at Peters La Cuisine in Ft. Myers, FL (1996–2000), where Kurt Amidzich worked as Executive Chef and built the habits that would define…
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Chef
Kwon Woo-joong
Seoul, South Korea
Gastronomy in Kwon Woo-joong’s work is treated as lineage rather than theme: roots and techniques, rare ingredients and seasonal materials, and dishes carrying cultural memory…
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Chef
Miguel Ángel de la Cruz
Matapozuelos, Spain
Miguel Ángel de la Cruz has built his work around one house, one address, and one long-held method at La Botica de Matapozuelos, Spain, where he has been chef since 2002. In a…
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Chef, Al Muntaha, Burj Al Arab
Saverio Sbaragli
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Saverio Sbaragli is an acclaimed chef leading Al Muntaha, a one-Michelin-starred fine dining restaurant located on the 27th floor of Burj Al Arab in Dubai. A Tuscan by origin,…
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Chef
Bernard Loiseau
Saulieu, France
Bernard Loiseau was a French chef whose long stewardship of Le Relais Bernard Loiseau in Saulieu, from 1975 to 2003, fixed his reputation around a strict, exacting reading of…
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Chef
Fabian Günzel
Vienna, Austria
## The Climb The standard is set in Fabian Günzel’s own words: “I like it radical, simple and authentic.” That preference reads as a method, not a slogan. The cooking is…
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Chef
Franck Putelat
Carcassonne, France
His cooking is framed in his own terms: "Nothing excites me more than searching for the pure essence of the product, its own nature, its identity to sublimate it." That principle…
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Chef
Giuseppe De Vuono
Hong Kong, Hong Kong
## The Climb A career built through London and Hong Kong kitchens shows the line of Giuseppe De Vuono’s training: exacting rooms, high standards, and little room for drift. At…
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Illario Mosconi
Luxembourg, Luxembourg
## The Climb The dining room taught the first discipline here. Before Mosconi in Luxembourg City, Illario Mosconi worked as a waiter at Restaurant business in Esch-sur-Alzette,…
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Chef
Mickael Viljanen
Dublin, Ireland
## Coming Up A disciplined progression runs through Mickael Viljanen’s early kitchens: The Tannery in Waterford from 2000, then Gregans Castle in West Ireland, before The…
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Chef
Alvaro Garrido
Bilbao, Spain
After kitchens in France, England, and China, Alvaro Garrido brought that cross-border perspective back to his homeland in 2006. At Mina, the work was set around seasonality,…
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Chef
Daisuke Nakazawa
New York City, New York, United States
Born in Japan, Daisuke Nakazawa came up through sushi’s orthodox route: apprenticeship, repetition, and the gradual tightening of hand, timing, and attention. The work asks for…
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Chef
Karim Ben Baba
Marrakech, Morocco
## Coming Up A brief run as chef-in-residence at 114 Faubourg in Paris (2022) put Karim Ben Baba into a wider field, but the signal was less about duration than about placement:…
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Chef
Masahiro Yoshitake
Tokyo, Japan
In Tokyo, the work at Sushi Yoshitake is built from concentration rather than ornament: abalone is served with a sauce made from its liver, and uni is read through age as well as…
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Chef
Matthieu Hervé
Sabran, France
Traditional French cuisine is the working base at Le Cèdre de Montcaud in Sabran, France, where Matthieu Hervé uses revision rather than rupture: “I like taking something…
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Phil Moratin
St. Helena, California, United States
Phil Moratin is Executive Chef at The Charter Oak Restaurant in St. Helena, a role that reflects a career built through measured advancement rather than noise. California Culinary…
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Chef
Romuald Fassenet
Shanghai, China
Chef at Da Vittorio Shanghai, Romuald Fassenet’s working line runs through formal training, brigade leadership, ownership, and menu development. The sequence begins at Lycée…
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Chef
Stéphane Andrieux
Lacave, France
Michelin consistency over a long service period is a craft measure before it is a biographical one. At Château de la Treyne in Lacave, France, the kitchen led by Stéphane Andrieux…
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Chef
Woongchul Park
London, United Kingdom
Woongchul Park is chef, owner and co-founder of Sollip in Park Royal, London NW10 7SA, bringing a quietly exacting approach to a kitchen shaped by movement between South Korea,…
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Chef
Zane Holmquist
Park City, Utah, United States
## The Climb Formal training at the Culinary Institute of America gave Zane Holmquist the technical base behind a career defined by discipline and consistency. That foundation…
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Chef
Giuseppe Mancino
Viareggio, Italy
Giuseppe Mancino has led Il Piccolo Principe in Viareggio since 2005, and the work there is defined by restraint, precision, and balance rather than decoration. Raised among the…
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Chef
Hussain Shahzad
Mumbai, India
## The Path Welcomgroup Graduate School of Hotel Administration, Manipal gave Hussain Shahzad his base. Eleven Madison Park in New York sharpened it. Back in India, The Bombay…
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Chef
Jude Parra-Sickels
Los Angeles, California, United States
The route runs through executive-chef posts at The Cannibal and majordōmo, with a cooking language that can move with equal assurance from smoked bone-in short rib to bing bread…
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Chef
Pere Massana
Girona, Spain
Pere Massana is Executive Chef at Massana (Girona, Spain), where he is also chef and owner. ## The Path The kitchen role at Massana is split across cooking and ownership, and Pere…
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Chef
Alexander Herrmann
Wirsberg, Germany
Alexander Herrmann cooks with a clear sense of ground beneath his feet. In Wirsberg, Germany, where his work is anchored, he is owner/co-founder of AURA by Alexander Herrmann &…
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Chef
April Bloomfield
London, United Kingdom
Before April Bloomfield took the kitchen at Sailor in New York City in 2023, the line of kitchens behind her had already done the work: London rooms and New York rooms, each one…
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Chef
Christian Binder
Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, Germany
Christian Binder’s path runs from culinary training at Restaurant Margaux to the head chef’s post he took in 2015 at Steinheuers Restaurant Zur Alten Post in Bad…
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Chef
Davide Caranchini
Cernobbio, Italy
Davide Caranchini’s work at Materia in Cernobbio, Italy, is recognized by Michelin for a style that keeps the room and kitchen in close contact. The cooking there is precise and…
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Chef
Franky Ho
San Francisco, California, United States
Franky Ho is the chef of Four Kings in San Francisco, where Cantonese cuisine is handled with discipline and pace. The work reads as exacting without being stiff: timing, texture,…
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Chef
Hans Stefan Steinheuer
Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, Germany
Hans Stefan Steinheuer has held the line on a certain kind of German cooking: exacting, regional, and built on repetition rather than display. Since 2015, as former culinary…
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Pastry chef
Jordan Snider
Charleston, South Carolina, United States
## The Path Training at L’Ecole Valrhona in Brooklyn, New York set the terms for Jordan Snider’s pastry work: precision, repetition, and control. From there, the record runs…
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Chef
Lionel Rigolet
Brussels, Belgium
Lionel Rigolet’s work at Comme chez Soi in Brussels, Belgium sits in a kitchen where precision matters as much as continuity. The discipline of that room traces back to École…
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Chef
Oriol Ivern
Barcelona, Spain
Oriol Ivern has been chef-owner of Hisop in Barcelona since 2001, and that tenure reads less like a brand expansion than a sustained practice: one room, one city, and a Catalan…
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Chef
Pino Cuttaia
Licata, Italy
## The Path Today, Pino Cuttaia is the owner and executive chef of La Madia, and, since 2021, chef of Uovodiseppia Milano, which was closed in Milan. In that pairing of places,…
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Chef
Tobias Bätz
Wirsberg, Germany
Tobias Bätz has been head chef at AURA by Alexander Herrmann & Tobias Bätz in Wirsberg, Germany since 2019, following an earlier head-chef chapter in the same town. The line of…
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Chef
Gianluca Gorini
San Piero In Bagno, Italy
## The Path The career line runs from brigade work in London to a deeper technical grounding in Siena, then back to San Piero in Bagno. At Monsieur Max in London, Gianluca Gorini…
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Chef
Santi Taura
Palma, Spain
His position is direct: "I'm not modernising Mallorcan cuisine, I'm updating it." The difference is technical, not rhetorical. In Santi Taura's work, tradition is not dressed up…
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Chef
Takao Takano
Lyon, France
His public career line is spare: chef of the restaurant that carries his name, in the city that shaped the work. ## Coming Up Takao Takano is chef of Takao Takano, a post he has…
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Chef
Taylor Stark
Denver, Colorado, United States
## Coming Up Taylor Stark’s early line work at Departure in Portland, Oregon was shaped by a dining room with skyline views and a fast pace, and the Head Chef role there ran until…
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Winemaker, Domaine Albert Bichot
Alain Serveau
Beaune, France
Alain Serveau was technical director at Albert Bichot in Beaune, France, from 1995 to 2024. His work also included the role of head winemaker at Maison Albert Bichot until 2022.…
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Winemaker
Albéric Bichot
Beaune, France
## The Climb At Maison Albert Bichot in Beaune, France, the work is organized around place first: terroir, restraint, and a refusal of theatrics. Albéric Bichot frames the house…
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