The People · Page 146
The artisans of taste.
Master Sommelier
Laura Williamson
Laura Williamson’s work reads like a disciplined service line: methodical, cumulative, and built to hold pressure. Master Sommelier and Certified Wine Educator credentials sit…
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James Beard Award winner
Laurann Claridge
Laurann Claridge is associated with this line: “A timeless look, that doesn’t feel like its expiration date is looming.” It reads like a tight brief for work that aims to hold its…
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James Beard Award winner
Lauren Chattman
Lauren Chattman’s work in pastry was built on formal study, not a restaurant upbringing. With a Ph.D. in English and two years teaching at Yale University, she brought academic…
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James Beard Award winner
Lauren Collins
The New Yorker’s long-form profile tradition depends on reported patience, structural control, and sentence-level pressure. Lauren Collins entered that system first as a…
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James Beard Award winner
Lauren Groveman
She trained at the Culinary Institute of America, where technique and discipline gave structure to skills that had been forming at home. Long before Lauren Groveman appeared in…
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Pastry chef
Lauren Haas
Lauren Haas built her pastry career with the kind of discipline that feels almost architectural: study first, then service, then a widening sphere of influence that now reaches…
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World's 50 Best Bars
Lauren Mote
Lauren Mote became cocktailian at Diageo in 2017. Her drink-making range was already visible in the Earl Grey Martini at Chow Restaurant in 2008. Her own framing of the work is…
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Bartender / bar director
Lauren Paylor
At Colada 14th, Hot Buttered Yum turns a seasonal brief into service. The cocktail carries holiday cues without leaning on spectacle, and Lauren Paylor uses that frame to deliver…
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Head Chef
Laurent Barberot
Laurent Barberot is Head Chef at La Chaumière. The city is unknown.
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Pastry chef
Laurent Branlard
World Pastry Team Championship, 2002, put Laurent Branlard on the map, and the result reads as a credential earned in a field where precision is the baseline. A native of France,…
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Winemaker
Laurent Brotte
From management at Brotte in 2000 to running the company, Laurent Brotte’s arc moves through Châteauneuf-du-Pape with the force of inheritance turned into daily work. The path…
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Relais & Châteaux Grand Chef
Laurent Gardinier
President of Relais & Châteaux, Laurent Gardinier frames hospitality as a working system rather than a single service line. The trade, in his view, runs across gastronomy, real…
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Pastry-chef
Laurent Jeannin
French pâtisserie in grand-hotel settings is built on repetition, timing, and a narrow margin for error. In Laurent Jeannin’s record, the early Paris marker is specific: sous chef…
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Pastry Chef
Laurent Le Daniel
Alliance de tradition et de création, sa pâtisserie est simplement savoureuse. Situé à Rennes, capitale bretonne, région des caramels, des sablés et autres gourmandises, Laurent…
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Winemaker
Laurent Vonderheyden
Laurent Vonderheyden is the owner-operator of Château Monbrison in Arsac, France, and the work there is measured less in volume than in judgment: patient replanting, careful…
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James Beard Award winner
Laurie Colwin
## The Essentials Laurie Colwin’s culinary writing is built on clarity: brisk, witty, and unwilling to dress up a point that can be made plainly. Where food prose often leans…
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Pastry chef at Dropbox
Laurie Jon Moran
Pastry discipline is built in rooms where timing, texture, temperature, and restraint have consequences. Laurie Jon Moran’s record runs through Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, Daniel,…
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James Beard Award winner
Laurie Ochoa
## Coming Up Food editing at the Los Angeles Times has been shaped by Laurie Ochoa’s early editorial work at Slake: Los Angeles, where the assignment was less about narrow beat…
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James Beard Award winner
Laurie Woolever
## Signature Laurie Woolever’s signature books include *Appetites: A Cookbook*, *World Travel: An Irreverent Guide*, *Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography*, *Richard Hart…
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James Beard Award winner
Lavanya Mahate
"Everything we want is on the other side of fear." ## The Path Foundational training at the University of Utah gave Lavanya Mahate a base for work that moved beyond credentials…
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James Beard Award winner
Lawrence Weeks
The restaurant’s split-level design gives Lawrence Weeks room to stage two conversations at once: Creole cooking and Southern foodways below, and, upstairs, a more refined…
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James Beard Award winner
Layla Schlack
Layla Schlack has worked across food, drinks, and travel publishing, where the job is to handle details without losing the larger argument of a story. In that overlap, she has…
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Bocuse d'Or laureate
Léa Linster
Léa Linster is the Luxembourgish chef and owner of Restaurant Léa Linster in Frisange, with the same title at Au Quai de la Gare and Kaschthaus in Hellange, Luxembourg. Three…
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James Beard Award winner
Leah Chase
## The Path Creole cuisine was the specialty, and Leah Chase set the terms plainly: “Pray, work and do for others.” The line reads less like motto than operating instruction. In…
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World's 50 Best Bars
Leah van Deventer
## The Path Judging, education, and awards stewardship define the reach of Leah van Deventer’s work in drinks. As judge of South African Rum Awards, judge of Tales of the Cocktail…
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James Beard Award winner
Leah Wong Ashburn
Leah Wong Ashburn’s work sits at the level of brewery stewardship: running Highland Brewing Company in Asheville, North Carolina as president and CEO, and tying that role to the…
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Chef
Lee Hanson
Lee Hanson became chef-owner of Frenchette in New York City in 2018 after starting in kitchens at 14. The work that follows is grounded in straight-up French classics, exacting…
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James Beard Award winner
Lee Hefter
## The Climb A first restaurant job at Wong's in New Jersey gave Lee Hefter the basic education of the line: pace, repetition, and the discipline that service demands. From there,…
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Farmer
Lee Jones
Flavor-led growing treats taste as an agronomic signal, not a garnish. At The Chef's Garden, Lee Jones frames nutrient density and eating quality as linked targets: “We’d long…
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James Beard Award winner
Lee S. Dean
Lee S. Dean is tied to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, and that link is the clearest marker of his place in the paper’s working record. In…
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Wine authority
Len Evans
"At 71, I had time on my hands. I rang a few friends, to see if they would support a non-profit organisation." In Len Evans, that plain sentence reads like method as much as…
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James Beard Award winner
Lena Sareini
## Coming Up The baking and pastry program at Schoolcraft College gave Lena Sareini the base that pastry asks for: disciplined technique, repetition, and the kind of slow…
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James Beard Award winner
Lenny Russo
## The Path Lenny Russo built Heartland Restaurant in St. Paul around a menu that stayed responsive to the day’s deliveries. The cooking changed with what farmers brought in that…
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Other
Leo Davila
In San Antonio, Texas, the material can be masa tinted red by Big Red soda, hibiscus folded into mole, and native Texas pecan set against duck breast. ## The Place Born and raised…
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Director
Leo Robitschek
## The Climb Fine drinking in New York rewards control under pressure: training, repetition, room awareness, and the ability to make a cocktail function as part of service rather…
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Master distiller / blender
Leonard Russel
Managing Director at Ian Macleod Distillers in Broxburn, Scotland, is a role tied to stewardship: brand custody, cask-led timeframes, continuity, and the decision-making required…
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Restaurateur / hotelier
Leonardo Inghilleri
The position sits at the corporate level, where the day-to-day concerns of a single property give way to the broader architecture of a global organization. In that setting,…
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Chef
Léonie Bouchet
## Coming Up International Marketing Management sits in the background of Léonie Bouchet’s profile, alongside training in plant-based, vegetarian culinary experiences and menus.…
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Bartender / bar director
Leow Yinying
Leow Yinying works at the bar at Live Twice in Singapore, where her presence is defined by precision, restraint, and the quiet confidence that comes from a tightly focused…
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Hendrick's Master Distiller
Lesley Gracie
## Coming Up Flavour development starts with measurement, repetition, and the ability to read small changes before they become defects. In an early flavour development role at…
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Asia's 50 Best
Lesley Liu
From Taiwan to Shanghai and back to Singapore, Lesley Liu’s route has moved from the kitchen to the wine room, carrying her from commis chef at Le Moût to sommelier at Maison…
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James Beard Award winner
Leslie Brenner
"Understanding what an ingredient means to a people, or to a diaspora, and then considering it in a different way promotes understanding, connection and empathy." That line sits…
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Chef
Leslie Daniel
“Cooking is a passion that I’ve had since I was a very young child.” ## The Climb In 2018, the Sous Chef role at Kuro in Atlantic City, New Jersey, gave Leslie Daniel the kind of…
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Bartender / bar director
Lester Jones Ligon
Those roles are the full public frame around him, and within that frame Lester Jones Ligon appears as a figure shaped less by a chain of titles than by the steady pull of making…
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James Beard Award winner
Lettie Teague
Wine writing, at its most useful, answers a buying question. Lettie Teague built her column around that brief: readers wanted to know what they should buy, not what they should…
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Wine authority
Levi Dalton
## The Path Service is the first school in Levi Dalton’s profile. He began as a waiter, reading the room from the guest side before moving into wine as sommelier at The Federalist…
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Chef
Lewis Barker
Since 2025, Lewis Barker has run the pass at Terre at Castlemartyr Resort in East Cork, Ireland, where the work is shaped by far-flung kitchens, disciplined technique, and a…
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World's 50 Best Bars
Lewis Jaffrey
Lewis Jaffrey describes late-night hospitality in terms of restraint, not spectacle. The brief he sets for a room is plain: late hours, but not loud music, not cheap beer in…
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Master distiller / blender
Lewis Rosenstiel
Former chairman of Schenley Industries, Lewis Rosenstiel made his name in spirits, where timing, taste, and market reading can shape what moves and what lingers. A Cincinnati…
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Chef
Li Chi Wai
Li Chi Wai is Executive Chinese Chef at The Legacy House at Rosewood Hong Kong, a role that places him at the helm of the restaurant’s Chinese kitchen and gives shape to the work…
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Chef
Li Yuet Faat
At Ming Court in Hong Kong, Guangdong flavour is handled as a living kitchen language: premium local ingredients are directed through traditional technique, then adjusted detail…
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Bartender / bar director
Liam Broom
## The Essentials Liam Broom’s London record is built around bar operations rather than venue-hopping. The shape is clear: three bar-management roles in the city, a measured rise…
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Winemaker
Liam Idzikowski
Liam Idzikowski is winemaker at Danbury Ridge Wine Estate in Chelmsford, Essex, where the cellar’s focus is English still Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. The work is defined by quality…
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Chef
Liam Lee
## Signature French-Korean beef tartare sits among Liam Lee’s signature dishes. ## In Their Words **“I’m going to use them for desserts.”** ## The Recognition The title is precise…
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World's 50 Best Bars
Libby Lingua
Libby Lingua is the owner of Highball Cocktail Bar in Phoenix, Arizona. Before opening the downtown Phoenix bar with Mitch Lyons in July 2020, she built 17 years of experience…
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James Beard Award winner
Lidia Bastianich
The Italian and Italian-American cook’s work begins in Pula, in the Zone A Allied military administration, and extends through a career that has included partnership in Eataly, an…
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James Beard Award winner
Lidia Matticchio Bastianich
Her style is often traced to three kitchens: grandmother Rosa’s farm-to-table approach, Aunt Nina’s more sophisticated methods in Trieste, and the commercial cooking she learned…
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James Beard Award winner
Ligaya Mishan
## Coming Up Food criticism at Ligaya Mishan’s level draws on reporting, editing, and a working sense of how restaurants actually function. Princeton University and Cornell…
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Pastry chef
Lily Jones
After returning from Australia during the financial crisis, Lily Jones turned sweets into a pastry and cake practice. What might have stayed a private interest became the basis of…
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James Beard Award winner
Lincoln Carson
## Coming Up A formal grounding at Johnson & Wales University gave Lincoln Carson the technical base, but the work started to sharpen under service conditions. The first…
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Master distiller / blender
Lincoln Wesley Henderson
Lincoln Wesley Henderson has worked in the quiet part of distilling where time, oak, and grain are managed into whiskey with intent. Since 2002, at Brown-Forman Corporation in…
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World's 50 Best Bars
Linda Douglas
Mixology and the at-home bar form a practical trade specialty: professional method adapted for domestic use. In Linda Douglas’s practice, the bar is treated as a working system of…
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James Beard Award winner
Linda Gassenheimer
## The Climb A history-teaching start in New York City gave Linda Gassenheimer a working sense of structure and sequence that carries through her food writing. The shift to print…
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James Beard Award winner
Linda Murphy
Linda Murphy is a chef, and in this case the word arrives with a certain starkness: all craft, no caption. There is no restaurant marquee, no city street, no timeline of openings…
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Pastry chef
Linda Vongdara
She has also said, “I admit, I love luxury because I like beautiful design, fine gastronomy, and quality services.” In practice, that places Linda Vongdara on the side of detail,…
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James Beard Award winner
Linda West Eckhardt
James Beard Award winner Linda West Eckhardt built her reputation through food writing that moved from magazine editing into independent publishing. The work sits at the junction…
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James Beard Award winner
Lindsey Shere
Born June 7, 1935, Lindsey Shere came to be closely identified with the role that defined her career, the one that gave her work its enduring shape and her name its quiet…
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James Beard Award winner
Linh Tran Garza
## The Path At Dong Phuong Bakery and Restaurant, ownership and management sit in the same hands, and Linh Tran Garza carries both. That combination ties long-term stewardship to…
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James Beard Award winner
Linton Hopkins
## Coming Up Westminster, Emory University, and Culinary Institute of America shaped Linton Hopkins early, giving the work a formal frame before the restaurants did. That…
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Winemaker
Lionel Cousin
Lionel Cousin built his reputation in Montalcino, where he founded Cupano in Italy and served as winemaker there from 1994 to 2021. Over nearly three decades, his work was shaped…
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Chef
Lionel Faury
Vineyard and cellar manager at Domaine Faury in Chavanay, France, Lionel Faury has held the role since 2006, bringing a measured continuity to an estate shaped by the rhythms of…
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Winemaker
Lionel Fraisse
## The Essentials At Domaine Alain Voge in Cornas, France, the work since 2018 has joined direction and cellar control under Lionel Fraisse: he serves as both director and Head…
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Pastry Chef
Lionel Pelle
Lionel Pellé, en collaboration avec Michel Galloyer, proposent un véritable panorama de la pâtisserie française. En renouvelant la carte des entremets quatre fois par an, en…
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James Beard Award winner
Lior Lev Sercarz
Lior Lev Sercarz founded and owns La Boîte in New York, New York, a role he has held since 2006. Born and raised in Israel, he came up as a chef at Daniel in New York City before…
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Head Chef
Lisa Angermann
Lisa Angermann is Head Chef at Frieda. The city is unknown.
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Winemaker
Lisa Chiappini
The work of a Bolgheri producer is split between field decisions and the relationships that carry the wine beyond its origin. In Lisa Chiappini’s case, that connection stays…
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James Beard Award winner
Lisa Donovan
She is also a mother, and that shapes the frame of the work: the long hours, the repeated motions, the small rituals that keep a kitchen moving. Lisa Donovan puts it plainly:…
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James Beard Award winner
Lisa Fain
Lisa Fain’s work turns a specific regional appetite into a sustained editorial practice. The pull toward Tex-Mex and chicken-fried steak became the organizing logic behind…
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Master of Wine
Lisa Granik
Georgian wine is the field Lisa Granik keeps returning to, and the work is about making space for bottles that repay attention. Earning Master of Wine in 2006 put formal…
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World's 50 Best Bars
Lisa Laird Dunn
For readers meeting Lisa Laird Dunn for the first time, the useful fact is lineage: the name points to a family story and a working frame of reference. ## The Essentials The…
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James Beard Award winner
Lisa Ling
Lisa Ling has built a career around close listening, and on Take Out with Lisa Ling that skill becomes the point of the work. Since 2022, she has hosted the series with an…
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James Beard Award winner
Lisa Ludwinski
Lisa Ludwinski is the Pastry Chef and owner of Sister Pie in Detroit, a position built on exacting technique, patience, and a clear eye for what humble ingredients can do in the…
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James Beard Award winner
Lisa M. Hamilton
Lisa M. Hamilton’s work is built around agriculture and the communities that form around it, and that focus gives both her writing and photography their weight. Her attention…
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Master of Wine
Lisa Perrotti-Brown
Now co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Wine Independent, Lisa Perrotti-Brown brings a point of view formed by geography, discipline, and years spent across key wine centers…
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Lisa Poncia
Lisa Poncia co-runs Stemple Creek Ranch with Loren Poncia and helps lead the family’s regenerative livestock operation.
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Master distiller / blender
Lisa Roper Wicker
Lisa Roper Wicker works in American whiskey through sourcing, proofing, and blending, with the final profile built as much from selection as from distillation. At Widow Jane…
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Winemaker
Liviu Grigorica
Liviu Grigorica is the Romanian oenologist of Velvet Winery. A PhD in Oenology, Food Technology Engineer, and Expert Wine and Spirits Taster, he brings laboratory discipline to…
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James Beard Award winner
Liz Kenyon
Liz Kenyon’s Seattle work sits in the practical overlap between comfort food, tight service, and kitchen control. She is executive chef at Manolin, she is in charge of Rupee Bar…
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James Beard Award winner
Liza de Guia
Liza De Guia works in food media as an Executive Producer, founder, Chief Storyteller, and On-Air Host out of Greenpoint, New York. The project, Food. Curated, is built through…
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Chef
Lluc Quintana
Before Lluc Quintana became chef at Can Xapes in Girona, his formation passed through Espai Sucre, a training point connected to a cooking style marked by structure and finish. In…
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Lode De Roover
Lode De Roover is Head Chef at Fleur de Lin. The city is unknown.
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Bartender / bar director
Logan Demmy
The club’s work is guest-first and experience-led: Logan Demmy frames Chivas Club as a modern, secret space built to give consumers a new way into Scotch whisky. The brief is not…
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Brewer
Logan Plant
Since 2022, beer development at Beavertown Brewery in London, United Kingdom has included Logan Plant working with the team on beers and innovations. The work is practical: tanks,…
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Founder
Loh Lik Peng
“There’s no future for us hoteliers if we don’t engage with businesses and the culture of our neighbourhood.” The working rule places hospitality in contact with its setting. In…
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Sommelier
Loïc Avril
## The Climb Loïc Avril built his profile on service discipline, bottle handling, and the kind of repetition that turns procedure into judgment. At The Fat Duck in UK (2009–2015),…
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Pastry Chef
Loïc Beziat
Après avoir obtenu son CAP en pâtisserie à l’École des Métiers de Cahors et avoir travaillé à la boulangerie Iragne de Labastide- Murat, Loïc Béziat a rapidement fait ses preuves…
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James Beard Award winner
Lois Ellen Frank
Lois Ellen Frank is an American chef with Red Mesa Cuisine, LLC in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where the work is as much about cultural memory as it is about food. She studied at the…
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Loren Poncia
Loren Poncia is the fourth-generation rancher who runs Stemple Creek Ranch with his wife Lisa and oversees its grass-fed and grass-finished livestock program.
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Winemaker
Lorenz Alphart
## The Path Cellar work defines Lorenz Alphart’s day-to-day role at Weingut Alphart am Mühlbach in Traiskirchen, Austria. The house’s focus sits with Rotgipfler and Zierfandler,…
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Winemaker
Lorenzo Sassetti
Lorenzo Sassetti works as both winemaker and proprietor at Sassetti Livio in Montalcino, and that combination keeps the job tied to two duties at once: making the wine and…
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