The People · Page 163
The artisans of taste.
Pastry Chef
Vianney Bellanger
En proposant 70 sortes de chocolat, la maison Bellanger affiche d’entrée sa passion. Artisan inspiré, le père de Vianney, Jacques Bellanger, a créé pour sa clientèle non seulement…
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Chef
Vicente Etchegaray
## The Path Bakea, Lomas de Chapultepec / Mexico City, Mexico, and that length of service is part of the work itself. The cooking is defined by exact placement, controlled finish,…
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James Beard Award winner
Vicente Wolf
Vicente Wolf is the owner and founder of Vicente Wolf Associates in New York, the firm he built after arriving in the city on his own as a Cuban refugee. That history is not…
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James Beard Award winner
Vicki Freeman
## The Climb A restaurant’s shape is often set less by flash than by control of the room, and that is the register in which Vicki Freeman made her mark at Five Points in NoHo, New…
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James Beard Award winner
Vicky Bennison
## The Climb The line between disciplines is visible in Vicky Bennison’s path: zoology at Newcastle University, then an MBA at the University of Bath, then work that moved between…
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Bartender / bar director
Victor Bergeron
## Early Years San Francisco marks the biographical record for Victor Bergeron, born December 10, 1902. The later work belongs to a branch of hospitality where the room, the…
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Bartender / bar director
Victor Bergeron Jr.
The opening tied Victor Bergeron Jr.’s name to a particular street corner, a modest format, and a precise year, and that makes it the clearest dated fact attached to him. There is…
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Chef
Victor Chen
## The Climb Omakase technique is built through repetition: clean knife work, controlled pacing, and the restraint to let sequence do part of the work. Victor Chen developed that…
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Pastry chef
Victor Dagatan
Victor Dagatan works in ice with the kind of control the medium demands: measured cuts, clean edges, and a read on the material before the form is fully there. As Ice Sculpture…
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Winemaker
Victor Ordóñez
## The Path Since 2020, Quadrum Wine Company has been shaped from the inside by Victor Ordóñez in a co-founder role that reads less like a title than an ongoing share in the work.…
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Master of Wine
Victoria Mason
Victoria Mason’s work sits at the point where buying, category management, and vineyard support meet. As Wine Buyer at The Wine Society, and leader of its Climate & Nature…
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Bartender / bar director
Vikram Ku
## Career At Diageo India, Vikram Ku has worked across World Class India and HNI Advocacy, a remit that sits between luxury, whisky culture and brand storytelling. The role has…
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James Beard Award winner
Vince Dixon
## Today At Northwestern University, Vince Dixon built the reporting habits that later defined his work: clarity, rigor, and a focus on how information is shaped for readers. That…
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World's 50 Best Bars
Vince Lombardi
Vince Lombardi appears here as a name, with no biographical scaffold attached. There is no venue, role, award, year, or quote in the record to extend beyond what is on the page.…
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Chef
Vincent Ferreira
Vincent Ferreira is Head Chef at Château de Courban, France, and the kitchen there reads through Burgundy rather than over it. From Digoin, he works with a regional frame of…
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James Beard Award winner
Vincent Guerithault
Chef-owner tenure is a craft discipline when it runs across decades. At Vincent on Camelback in Phoenix, Arizona, Vincent Guerithault has held that discipline from 1986 to today,…
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Pastry Chef
Vincent Guerlais
« Vincent Guerlais, agitateur de papilles », telle est la devise de la maison ! Toujours à la recherche du goût et de la créativité, Vincent et son équipe proposent une vaste…
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Vincent Hennequart
Vincent Hennequart is part of the family leadership at Pisciculture Hennequart, the Saint-Viâtre aquaculture operator behind Caviar de Sologne.
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Sommelier
Vincent Morrow
Wine-program leadership is built in increments: cellar discipline, floor timing, list architecture, pairing judgment, staff education, and commercial control. Before Vincent…
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Pastry chef
Vincent Pilon
## Coming Up Training at L’école Jean Ferrandi gave Vincent Pilon the technical base he later carried into pastry and chocolate shops throughout France. From there, the work moved…
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Winemaker
Vincent Roussely
Vincent Roussely works as a winemaker at Clos Roussely Domaine Viticole in Angé, France. That role places the craft first: making wine within a defined domaine, in a named place,…
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Winemaker
Vincent Teulon
## Coming Up Since 2007, Vincent Teulon has been winemaker at Chateau Vessière in Saint Gilles, a role defined less by novelty than by continuity. At a family estate, the work is…
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Executive Chef
Vincent Thierry
Vincent Thierry is Executive Chef at Chef's Table. The city is unknown.
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Pastry Chef
Vincent Vallée
C’est tout jeune que Vincent Vallée découvre le monde de la restauration et de la pâtisserie grâce au travail saisonnier effectué dans le restaurant de ses parents « Villa Dilecta…
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Bartender / bar director
Vincenzo Errico
Vincenzo Errico is a bartender and bar director, and that pared-back description feels deliberate: two titles, each carrying its own weight, each pointing to a different side of…
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Chef
Vincenzo Scarmiglia
Executive Chef at La Centrale in Brickell City Center in Miami, Florida, is the title that fixes Vincenzo Scarmiglia’s American work within a clear trade frame: Italian regional…
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Other
Vinnie Cimino
## Coming Up Professional kitchens teach early what the line rewards: repetition, pace, and the ability to stay exact when the room is moving fast. As cook at Russo's in…
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James Beard Award winner
Vinny Dotolo
Vinny Dotolo is a James Beard Award winner, and that single distinction does a great deal of work. It places him in a narrow, recognizable lane of culinary excellence, where the…
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Master Sommelier
Viraj Sawant
Viraj Sawant moved from a brand ambassador role with Berkmann Wine Cellars India in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India into wine education and founding work, building a career that now…
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Head Chef
Virgil Kahn
Virgil Kahn is Head Chef at HŌSEKI. The city is unknown.
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James Beard Award winner
Virginia Miller
## Coming Up Virginia Miller built her reporting eye in restaurants before she used it to write about them. As restaurant critic at SF Bay Guardian in San Francisco, she learned…
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Master Sommelier
Virginia Philip
Virginia Philip is Wine Director at The Breakers in Palm Beach, Florida, and a Master Sommelier. Her work also includes the Wine Director role for HMF at The Breakers, a concise…
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James Beard Award winner
Virginia Willis
Virginia Willis arrives here as a study in deliberate restraint: a name presented without the usual scaffolding of a conventional biography, leaving only the silhouette of…
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Winemaker
Virna Borgogno
Virna Borgogno is a winemaker in Barolo, Italy, where the cadence of the hills and the discipline of cellar work shape a life devoted to wine. She studied at the University of…
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James Beard Award winner
Vitaly Paley
## The Path French Culinary Institute gave Vitaly Paley the technical base; Au Moulin de la Gorce in France added apprenticeship discipline before the work moved through Union…
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Winemaker
Vittorio Festa
## The Path Foundational work at Centro Tecnico Enologico d’Abruzzo gave Vittorio Festa a technical base built on method rather than flourish. That early role as fondatore reads…
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Chef
Vittorio Fiore
Sangiovese Grosso is the operating constraint at this Montalcino property: one planted grape, carried from vine to cellar to bottle without a second variety in the mix. In…
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James Beard Award winner
Vivian Howard
Vivian Howard is a James Beard Award winner, a distinction that places her name in the company of American food’s most closely watched figures. In a culinary landscape where many…
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World's 50 Best
Viviana Varese
Viviana Varese works across restaurant dining, pastry, and consulting with a background rooted in family service and kitchen discipline. She is Italian Chef di casa at Passalacqua…
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Sommelier
Vladimir Ocokolji
Vladimir Ocokoljic is a sommelier. In a profession where precision matters as much as palate, that title is not an aside but the whole frame: a way of reading a room, a cellar,…
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Chairman and CEO
Vladislav Doronin
Chairman and CEO of Aman since 2014, Vladislav Doronin works in a hospitality register where ownership, detail, atmosphere, and controlled expansion are part of the operating…
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Pastry Chef
Volker Gmeiner
La Forêt Noire est toute proche et le gâteau au chocolat qui porte son nom est proprement céleste ! Tout ici, fruits du jardin, alcools et vins, spécialités, pâtisserie et…
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Sommelier
Vuk Vuletiç
Serbian sommellerie is a service craft before it is a credential: tasting, selecting, explaining, and serving wine under the pressure of a live dining room. Since 2022, that work…
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Master distiller / blender
W.L. Lyons Brown Sr.
The designation distillery executive is spare, but it covers the work: keeping a large spirits company aligned to its standards, its identity, and its long horizon in Louisville,…
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Other
Wally Joe
His cooking rests on the kind of plain talk that holds up under service: “It’s really quite simple, there is no magic involved in my cooking.” That line explains the work. The…
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cheesemaker
Walo von Mühlenen
Cheese affinage depends on milk, rind, time, and repeated judgment. In Granges-Paccot, Switzerland, that work is tied to Walo Von Mühlenen AG, where Walo Von Mühlenen is connected…
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Chef
Walter Donadio
Since 2019, Walter Donadio has been the Executive Chef of Lokal Eatery & Bar in Jersey City, New Jersey, where the work asks for pace control, consistency, and a steady hand. The…
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Restaurateur / hotelier
Walter Isenberg
## The Path Walter Isenberg trained at Cornell University, School of Hotel Administration, then started in the humblest possible post, working as a dishwasher at Kansas City area…
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Winemaker
Walter Massa
## Career At Vigneti Massa in Monleale, Italy, Walter Massa has made Timorasso the working center of the cellar, and the grape has become the main through-line in his account of…
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Chef
Walter Mayen
His path runs from seafood station fundamentals to the kitchen’s top role. ## Coming Up Training at Le Cordon Bleu in Pasadena gave Walter Mayen the baseline, but the daily work…
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Wine authority
Walter Speller
## In Their Words **“I can still see myself sitting there, flipping through The World Atlas of Wine, wondering what I was going to do next with my life.”** Wine writing often…
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Master Sommelier
Wanda Cole
## The Path Two posts define the daily range of Wanda Cole’s work: sommelier at VinBev and chef at Halfway Kitchen. The pairing points to a kitchen life built on timing, service,…
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James Beard Award winner
Waverley Root
## The Essentials *The Food of Italy* is the clearest example of Waverley Root working across reporting, travel, and food writing without separating the three. The book holds…
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World's 50 Best
Wawira Njiru
## The Path Food for Education has been under Wawira Njiru’s direction since 2016, with the founder’s role carrying both operational and structural weight. The work started from a…
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Master Sommelier
Wayne Belding
Master Sommelier Wayne Belding holds the Master Sommelier credential, the profession’s highest marker of wine service expertise. In a trade built on precision, memory, and…
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Bartender / bar director
Wayne Collins
## The Climb Cocktail work in public settings depends on more than a balanced formula. It requires the drink to survive translation: into a recipe, a studio segment, a…
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World's 50 Best Bars
Wayne Curtis
His work moves across cocktails, spirits, distilling, travel, archaeology, and transit, with the connective tissue always the same: Wayne Curtis returns to the culture, science,…
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James Beard Award winner
Wayne Kostroski
Wayne Kostroski is the co-owner of Cuisine Concepts in Edina, Minnesota, and that role sits inside a career built on hospitality, development, and work tied to causes beyond the…
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Pastry chef
Wei Loon Tan
World Pastry Champion Wei Loon Tan came up through the hotel trade in his early 20s, where long hours and close observation set the terms of his first training. As he says, “I…
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Master of Wine
Wei Xing
Wei Xing is a Master of Wine, and the credential is the central fact attached to his name. In a field where titles can be ornamental, this one carries its own quiet authority:…
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James Beard Award winner
Wendell Brock
Reporting a dining room or a stage begins with observation before opinion. In Wendell Brock’s case, that habit was shaped first on a South Georgia peanut farm, then formalized…
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Master distiller / blender
Wendell Ford
Master distilling and blending sit in the ordinary discipline of showing up, looking closely, and reading the room. Wendell Ford frames the work as something made in place,…
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Culinary legend
Werner Absenger
Program director at the Secchia Institute for Culinary Education in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Werner Absenger has moved between kitchen work, scholarship, and nutrition without…
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Master distiller / blender
Wes Henderson
Wes Henderson began at a kitchen counter, and that detail it points to the kind of discipline distilling demands: close attention, repetition, and a willingness to work from what…
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Chef
Wesli Jacobs
Wesli Jacobs is the Executive Chef — Cape Grace, A Fairmont Managed Hotel (Cape Town, South Africa). The plate work under his direction is built around contrast: coastline against…
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Wine authority
Wilfred Wong
Wilfred Wong is identified as a wine authority, a designation that points to fluency in vineyards, cellars, vintages, and the long memory carried by a bottle. The public record…
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Winemaker
Wilhelm Thell
Wilhelm Thell works where kitchen and estate overlap at Weingut Wilhelm Thell in Andau, Austria. The work sits inside the calendar of the vineyard: light, vine rows, harvest…
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Restaurateur / hotelier
Wilhelmina Skogh
## The Climb Hotel work is built in layers: service pace, cash handling, floor authority, then the coordination that holds a house together. Wilhelmina Skogh moved through each of…
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James Beard Award winner
Will Basanta
Cinematography is the primary craft here: a practice of light, composition, patience, and precision. In Will Basanta’s work, the frame trains attention on how texture appears, how…
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Will Brokaw
Will Brokaw is the general manager of Brokaw Avocados and a co-owner of the family-run Brokaw Ranch Company fruit operation.
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World's 50 Best
Will Drew
Will Drew is a chef, and the work itself does the identifying. The name sits inside a kitchen practice built on prep, timing, service, and the discipline of making food land…
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Farmer
Will Harris
Bluffton, Georgia, is the working ground for White Oak Pastures, a farm tied to one family line since 1866, when Will Harris’s great-grandfather first tilled the land. The current…
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Wine authority
Will Lyons
Will Lyons is a wine authority. In a field often crowded with titles, affiliations, and the familiar architecture of career milestones, his profile remains strikingly spare. There…
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Head Chef
William Belickis
William Belickis is Head Chef at Violet.
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Pastry chef
William Curley
"I am very happy with what I have achieved as a chef, it is important for me now to pass on my skills to the next generation." That line captures the shape of William Curley’s…
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Bocuse d'Or laureate
William Davidsen
William Davidsen is a Norwegian chef working in the register of precision, restraint, and Nordic clarity. In a field that can reward display, Davidsen’s name reads as a cue for…
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Master distiller / blender
William Delme Evans
William Delme Evans came to distillery design with the habits of a land surveyor: measure first, then place. In 1949, at Tullibardine in Blackford, Perthshire, Scotland, he…
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World's 50 Best Bars
William Drew
## The Path William Drew entered the trade through editorial work at The World's 50 Best Restaurants, where the scale of the platform meant learning how rankings, language, and…
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Master distiller / blender
William Frederick McCoy
William Frederick McCoy enters the record with very little ornament, and that restraint is the point. August 17, 1877 is the fixed date attached to his name; beyond that, the file…
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Wine luminary
William Kelley
William Kelley is a wine reviewer at The Wine Advocate, with Burgundy as the clearest ground for his judgment. The work reads as method built over time: a steady eye for maturity,…
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Master distiller / blender
William LaRue Weller
William LaRue Weller appears here like a name set carefully on a table and left there to speak for itself: dignified, exact, and just slightly out of reach. The result is not so…
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Master of Wine
William Lowe
William Lowe carries the Master of Wine credential. In trade terms, that title does the heavy lifting: it marks the discipline of repeated tasting, comparison, recall, and…
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Pastry chef
William Racin
William Racin became Pastry Chef at Duquesne Club in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 2009 after training at The Culinary Institute of America in St. Helena, California. The work at a…
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Master distiller / blender
William Teacher
William Teacher was a Scottish wine and spirit merchant born in Glasgow, Scotland. Glasgow’s commercial pace suited a trade built on reading the market, and Teacher’s career…
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Sommelier
William Wouters
Belgian sommelier William Wouters comes from a restaurateur family in Antwerp, Belgium, and that background is legible in the way he approaches wine: plainly, with discipline, and…
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Pastry chef
William Yosses
William Yosses has worked in pastry as a disciplined line between structure and expression. Best known for serving as White House Executive Pastry Chef from 2007 to 2014, with his…
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James Beard Award winner
Willie Mae
## Coming Up No former role is listed. Even so, the story of Willie Mae reads like the kind of culinary legacy that rarely needs embellishment to feel weighty: the name itself…
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Master distiller / blender
Willie Pratt
Willie Pratt is a Master Distiller and blender, a title that suggests not just a job but a discipline shaped by patience, precision, and a practiced sense of proportion. One…
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Chef
Wolfgang Rappl
Wolfgang Rappl’s work sits in the operational end of the trade: kitchen management, food operations, cost control, inventory oversight, and F&B leadership. As Executive Culinary…
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Executive Chinese Chef of T’ang Court
Wong Chi Fai
For Traditional Cantonese cuisine, one-kitchen progression carries its own technical value. Wong Chi Fai’s career at T’ang Court in The Langham, Hong Kong, was built through…
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Michelin-starred chef
Wong Lung To
## Coming Up Classical training sits at the base of Wong Lung To’s work: Le Cordon Bleu and the Hotel, Tourism and Culinary Institutes Alumni Association gave him the discipline…
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Wine authority
Wu Xiuyong
## The Climb At Dongfang Yuxing Winery, the winemaker role is the working center of the cellar, and Wu Xiuyong holds it with the kind of accumulated judgment that comes from…
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In charge of pastry
Xavi Donnay
Restaurant pastry at Lasarte Restaurant in Barcelona has required a controlled finish to the menu since 2010, when Xavi Donnay took charge of the sweet side of the kitchen. The…
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Chef
Xavier Beaudiment
Michelin Guide — 2 Stars at Le Pré in Clermont-Ferrand, France, marks Xavier Beaudiment’s work as a kitchen defined by Auvergne and by a direct reading of place. The cuisine tied…
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Pastry Chef
Xavier Berger
Meilleur chocolatier de France 2010, Xavier Berger est un virtuose du chocolat. Son talent s’inscrit dans le droit fil d’une lignée d’artisans émérites. Espiègle, audacieux,…
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World's 50 Best Bars
Xavier Padovani
## The Path Experimental Group’s growth reads as a study in staged expansion: a humble cocktail bar in Paris, then hotels, bars, and restaurants across Europe and New York. In…
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Winemaker
Xavier Vignon
“I have always wanted to create blends and experiment rather than just buying to re-sell.” For Xavier Vignon, blending is the core craft, not a side task. It is where separate…
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Chef
Xavier Weisskopf
## The Climb Auxerre and Beaune formed the technical base of Xavier Weisskopf’s work, giving structure to a practice built on precision and on reading vineyard difference closely.…
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Chef
Xu Jian Wei
Xu Jian Wei’s public trade record is anchored in a named kitchen appointment: Junior Sous Chef at Odette Restaurant. Biography places the work inside a specific restaurant brigade…
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World's 50 Best Bars
Yael Vengroff
Yael Vengroff’s work at The Spare Room in Los Angeles is defined by control of tempo, placement, and room feel. As Beverage Director there, and also a bartender, Vengroff holds…
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