In the Kitchen with Bret Thorn

Alex Curley is chief operating officer of Palacios Murphy, a Houston-based restaurant company that got its start with Armandos, a 43-year-old restaurant that occupies the unique niche of serving Tex-Mex food in a fine-dining setting. Apart from opening a couple of restaurants in the village of Round Top, Texas, midway between Houston and Austin, Armandos’ owners basically stuck to the business of running that local culinary institution.But in the aftermath of the pandemic, they started to explore new possibilities. Now they operate Hotel Lulu in Round Top as well as Italian concept Lulu’s, casual Tex-Mex restaurant Mandito’s, and Popi Burger which serving burgers and sandwiches.Heading up operations is Alex Curley, who joined the group after a career of working in multiconcept groups including Southern Proper Hospitality and Richard Sandoval Restaurants.Curley recently discussed the evolution of Palacios Murphy, which now centers a lot of its activity around Round Top, and how to run successful businesses 365 days a year in a town that really only comes to life during festivals.

Gayle Pirie is the chef and partner, with John Clark, of Foreign Cinema, a dining institution in San Francisco’s Mission District that has been nourishing its guests with Mediterranean-inspired California cuisine, as well as with movies projected on the restaurant’s wall, for the past 25 years.She grew up in San Francisco and funded her ambitions as an oil painting artist by cooking. From 1985 to 1993 she worked with her mentor, Judy Rogers, at Zuni Café, and then went on to launch a restaurant consulting practice. That was followed by work with Alice Waters at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif., as her personal assistant. She joined Clark at Foreign Cinema in 2001.Pirie takes her role as a “restaurateur” seriously. The word is French for “someone who restores,” and she does that by fostering the success of her employees, local producers, and her community as well her guests.She is also a pioneer in sustainability practices, including her recent adoption of oil from Spotlight Foods, headquartered not far away in Alameda, Calif., that is derived from algae.Pirie recently discussed this new oil as well as her approach to running her restaurant and her plans for the future.

Julia Zhu is the managing partner for the United States of Grandma’s Home, a chain with more than 200 locations in 60 cities in China, and with its first U.S. location opening soon in New York City’s Flatiron neighborhood.Zhu is the daughter of one of the founder’s of the chain and she’s heading up the opening.She was born in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province in China and a city whose cuisine hasn’t been seen much in the United States. Zhu moved to the U.S. at the age of 15 and said she’s looking forward to showcasing the food that she grew up eating and that is hard to find here.Neither Hangzhou nor its cuisine are well known in the United States, but it is an ancient and beloved city, known for its scenic West Lake and general beauty. In fact, there’s a Chinese saying: “The sky has heaven, the earth has Suzhou and Hangzhou,” Suzhou being another ancient city known for its gardens the next province up in Jiangsu.Marco Polo reportedly said that Hangzhou was the finest city in the world.Zhu discussed the cuisine of her hometown and her plans for the New York City restaurant.

Ameneh Marhaba is doing her part to spread the love of West African food in Detroit.Born in the West African country of Liberia, she grew up in that country, where her mother is form, as well as Lebanon, her father’s home country, before she, her dad, and siblings moved to Detroit when she was around 15.Having always loved the food she grew up on, she wanted to share it with others in her new home. She thought of launching a food truck but soon learned that she was priced out of such a venture, so instead she started going to bars, offering to cook and sell items like jollof rice, fried plantains, and spiced meat skewers.It turns out that the bars were receptive to the idea.“Most of them were really nice about it,” she said.So in 2016 she started doing pop-ups at those bars under the name Little Liberia. Over time, her efforts grew into catering gigs and one-off seated dinners.Now, with the help of Hatch Detroit by TechTown, which awarded her $100,000 in a competition with some 350 other small business, Marhaba is getting ready to open Little Liberia as a brick-and-mortar restaurant.She recently discussed her journey and her plans for the restaurant.

Johnny Spero has been cooking for pretty much his whole life, and he has been running his own restaurants since he opened Reverie in the Washington, D.C., neighborhood of Georgetown in 2018. The intimate fine-dining restaurant took its lumps over the course of the pandemic, but it was done in by a fire in August of 2022, from which nothing but memories was salvaged.Spero already had established himself as a big-name chef: When he was executive chef of José Andrés’s Minibar in D.C., Washington Post critic Tom Sietsema had given the restaurant a four-star review and the local eater.com declared him “Chef of the Year.” He also competed in the Netflix show, The Final Table.Before the fire, Reverie had been granted a Michelin star.He also had another restaurant, the more casual Bar Spero inspired by the time he spent in Spain’s Basque country, including a stage at the much lauded Mugaritz. But as he tried to pick up the pieces from the fire, and planned to reopen Reverie, Spero took the time to travel the world, doing collaborative pop-ups and continuing to learn how operators from around the world ran their own restaurants, sourced their food, and worked to make their own corners of globe a better place.Reverie is about to reopen — its debut is slated for late February — and Spero recently discussed what he has learned since the fire, and what his plans are for the future.Contact Bret Thorn at bret.thorn@informa.com 

Lane Li is the chef and owner of Noodle Lane, which opened earlier this year in the Brooklyn, N.Y., neighborhood of Park Slope. Li was born in China but her family immigrated to New York City, where they already had relatives, when she was a child. She worked in finance for many years before her love for food led her to set up a stand at the weekly open-air food festival Smorgasburg. Her dan dan noodles in particular were a big success, and she decided to open a brick-and-mortar restaurant near her home.It will be a surprise to no one in the industry that opening Noodle Lane was a lot harder than Li expected, but she persevered and is now serving dumplings (including soup dumplings because they’re her son’s favorite), noodles, stir-fried dishes, stews and more for lunch and dinner, with brunch coming soon.Li recently shared her experience of opening her first restaurant, the challenges she faced, and advice for other new restaurateurs.

Carl Sobocinski has been spending the past 25 years or so creating popular restaurants in Greenville, S.C., and in the process revitalizing the center of that city and enabling his employees to develop great careers.In fact, he has helped a number of his team members to stop working for him and work for themselves instead. Sobocinski has been spinning off his restaurants to employees in a number of deals involving both sweat equity and financial investment, creating a new set of entrepreneurs for this city that’s about midway between Charlotte, N.C., and Atlanta.One of those entrepreneurs is Michael Minelli, a New Jersey native who fell in love with Greenville, started working for Sobocinski and is now the owner of Passerelle.Sobocinski is also a northerner, born in Boston and raised in New Hampshire. He moved to South Carolina to study architecture at Clemson University, worked in restaurants and bars while studying and, as many people do, fell in love with the hospitality industry.Sobocinski and Minelli recently discussed their respective careers and their plans for the future.

Paramjeet Bombra is the head chef of Gulaabo, a new restaurant in New York City focusing on the cuisine of Punjab in northwestern India and eastern Pakistan.Bombra is a native of Punjab and had cooked all over India before arriving in New York and working at modern Indian gastropub Baar Baar, whose owners opened Gulaabo as a vehicle for the chef to highlight the cuisine of his native state.Since opening the restaurant this summer, Bombra has been thrilling guests with items such as Amritsari Kulcha — a long and dramatically presented flatbread — goat curry made using his grandmother’s recipe, and a traditional dessert of cottage cheese balls that he tops with saffron ice cream.Among other aspects of Punjabi culture that Gulaabo celebrates is its hunting tradition, which is reflected in the menu’s fried quail kebab and its rabbit curry.Bombra discussed his strategy for developing the menu and his plans for the future.

Sarah Stegner has been the chef and co-owner of Prairie Grass Cafe in the Chicago suburb of Northbrook, Ill., since she opened it in 2004. From there she has overseen a community of team members, local suppliers, and customers that she says are essential to the success of the restaurant as well as of those around her.She’s a founding member of a number of area organizations that foster sustainable food production, including Green City Market, of which she’s also past president, and The Abundance Setting, which supports working women and mothers in foodservice. More recently, she was a co-founder of Chicago Chefs Cook, which has raised more than $1 million since its founding in 2022 through culinary events, some of which has been donated to José Andrés’s World Central Kitchen.She’s also an advisor to chef Sebastian White of The Evolved Network, which supports farming and culinary education for underprivileged kids in the area.Stegner was already an industry veteran when she opened her own restaurant, having been chef of The Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton, Chicago, for 21 years.Stegner recently discussed the importance of community in her work, and how she continues to nurture those around her, including the growing number of people who are sensorily sensitive.

Billy Dec is a longtime restaurateur and entrepreneur, mostly in Chicago, where his Rockit Ranch Productions operated a number of concepts, but now he is expanding to new markets and focusing, as much as Dec ever focuses, on Sunda New Asian, a festive restaurant that celebrates his Filipino heritage.He also has a nightclub called The Underground, an advertising agency called COACT, and the human resources firm HR Pro.Dec is actually a lawyer by training, something he says certainly doesn’t hurt when it comes to running restaurants, and he has long been involved in raising the profile of Asian Americans. He was on President Obama’s White House Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, as well as the White House Bullying Prevention Task Force.He also is an on-camera personality, having been a frequent guest on morning shows and appearing in a variety of films and television programs, and he just released a documentary, Food Roots, that debuted in September at the Nashville Film Festival.Dec recently discussed that film, his heritage, his adjustments during the pandemic, his new Sunda location in Tampa, and his plans for the future.

Richard Sandoval has spent the past couple of decades running restaurants and educating the world about Mexican cuisine, and more recently about other Latin American cuisines as well.He was born in Mexico and comes from a family of restaurateurs. Upon his arrival in the United States he found the food that was billed as Mexican didn’t resemble what he grew up on at all, and he resolved to change that.He studied at The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., and like many such graduates in the early 1990s he started cooking French food. His first restaurant, Savann in New York City, was indeed French, as was his second one, Savann Est, also in New York.But in 1997 he opened Maya, and that became the seed of his global empire, Richard Sandoval Hospitality, that now operates or licenses some 60 restaurants around the world. In fact, his company says it introduced Latin cuisine to the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Serbia.Sandoval, now a cookbook author and TV personality as well as a restaurateur, has launched a mentorship program to help cultivate young talent, and he recently discussed that while reflecting on his decades in hospitality.

Sam Fore recently opened her first restaurant, but she has been on the professional food scene for years.Of Sri Lankan heritage but born and raised in Lexington, Ky., Fore got her start doing pop-ups at festivals in 2016. The food was a mashup of the spice palette of Sri Lanka with the foods of the South. Her ribs drew the locals, then her fried chicken started to attract crowds, and her tomato pie became something of a viral sensation. Soon she was working as a guest chef at high-end restaurants across the country. She demonstrated her techniques at prestigious food events such as the Culinary Institute of America’s Worlds of Flavor conference, and was even a finalist for the James Beard Foundation Award for best chef in the Southeast — possibly the first time that honor was given to a chef without a restaurant.But now she does have a restaurant. Tuk Tuk Snack Shop opened in Lexington last week, and shortly before opening she discussed her journey and what she has learned along the way.

Michael Schlow started working in restaurants at age 14 and never looked back. Yes, he went to college and culinary school, and sometimes worked in non-foodservice jobs for extra money, but the native of Brooklyn, N.Y., has been in kitchens of many different types for decades.He gained fame and awards with his fine-dining restaurant Radius in Boston, which closed in 2013, and since has been working on a variety of other projects across the country, especially in New England and the Washington, D.C., area.That empire has shrunk since the pandemic started, as many have, and Schlow and his team currently operate nine restaurants, including five Alta Strada locations, serving fairly traditional Italian food in a casual setting, along with Michael Schlow’s at the Time Out Market in Boston, Sauce Burgers at Hub Hall in Boston, and Nama Sushi Bar and Nama Ko in D.C.Schlow, like many multi-concept operators is working with more hotels these days, leveraging his operational experience with their infrastructure.Schlow is the author of the cookbook “It’s About Time, Great Recipes for Everyday Life,” and has won multiple awards including being named Best Chef in the Northeast by the James Beard Foundation in 2000.The chef and restaurateur recently discussed his current and future projects as well as how his priorities have shifted in recent years.

Maya-Camille Broussard is the chef and owner of Justice of the Pies, a bakery concept specializing in sweet and savory pies that she started operating out of satellite kitchens in Chicago in 2014. It’s an LC3, or a low-profit limited liability company, which has a primary mission of providing social benefits, but unlike non-profit organizations, is allowed to distribute profits.Broussard’s mission is to positively affect the lives of people in the underserved communities where she operates through education in creativity, including baking, as well as nutrition. She also operates the non-profit Broussard Justice Foundation focused on food- and health-related issues.She opened her first brick-and-mortar bakery, on Chicago’s South Side in her mother’s former dentist’s office, in June.Broussard also is the star of the Netflix series Bake Squad, and her cookbook, Justice of the Pies, was published by Penguin Random House in 2022.The baker, who is in New York City as a visiting fellow at the James Beard Foundation, recently discussed her mission and the importance of showing young people how to achieve their own dreams.

Philippe Massoud, the chef and owner of Ilili restaurant, with one location in New York City celebrating its 15th year and a newer one in Washington, D.C., that opened in 2021.He comes from a family of restaurateurs in Lebanon, who sent him to the United States to stay with relatives. Then the political situation deteriorated at home and he found himself an unwitting immigrant, enrolled in high school in the suburban New York county of Westchester, where he played football, and found the local Middle Eastern food to be lacking.Eventually he used his family’s recipes and techniques to open Ilili to critical acclaim.Massoud has maintained his connections with Lebanon, visiting his mother once or twice a year (his father was executed during the unrest), and carrying at Ilili what he says is the largest selection of Lebanese wines in the United States.Massoud recently discussed his restaurants and what makes his native country’s food distinct from other cuisines in the Middle East.

Sam Bakhshandehpour is the president and CEO of the José Andrés Group, formerly ThinkFoodGroup, based in Washington, D.C.He joined the company in early 2020 from The Silverstone Companies, a hospitality group that opened Andrés’ first restaurant outside of D.C., Bazaar by José Andrés.Prior to that he was president and CEO of another hotel company, SBE Entertainment, and before that he worked in investment banking, heading up J.P. Mogran Securities’ casino investment practice, among other things.His move to his current job comes at a time when more restaurant companies are partnering with hotels, often to benefit from those hotels’ management infrastructure, among other assets. However, Bakhshandehpour said Andrés’ group already has those abilities, but there are other reasons for hotels and restaurants to work together, which is why that is a key strategy of his company, including the upcoming opening of the latest Bazaar, at The Ritz-Carlton New York, NoMad, in early August.Bakhshandehpour recently discussed those benefits as well as Andrés’ media company, which he also oversees.

Shawn McClain has been running restaurants for decades, having got his start in Chicago, where he lived for 20 years, first studying at Kendall College and then building a name for himself as a talented and innovative chef.He ran the kitchen of Trio in Evanston, Ill., before Grant Achatz took that over and began his own rise to fame. Then McClain opened Spring to critical acclaim in 2001, followed by Green Zebra, which was one of the country’s first fine dining vegetarian restaurants.Now he spends his time between Detroit, the hometown of his wife Holly, and Las Vegas. The couple has been back in Motor City for the past 12 years and currently operates Highlands, a fine-dining restaurant at the top of General Motors’ global headquarters, where he has reworked the typical approach to running restaurants with spectacular views by actually offering great food and service there.Holly McClain is heading up Olin, a sort of American brasserie in downtown Detroit that the couple built and opened during lockdown.McClain’s Libertine Social, now in its seventh year of operations, is at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas and is having its best year on record. He opened Balla Italian Soul last year and is working on opening his first Las Vegas concept that’s not on the Strip, a wine bar and retail shop called Wineaux.The couple recently shared their approaches to running their restaurants and discussed the business climates in the two cities where they operate.

Rob Rubba is the chef of Oyster Oyster in Washington, D.C., which, despite the name, is a mostly vegan restaurant. One of the ‘oyster’s in the name stands for oyster mushrooms, and the other is for the actual sea creatures, which apart from being delicious are regenerative animals that help shore up the coastlines and riverbanks where they grow while also helping to purify the water. The single oyster dish on the menu, from a local producer, of course, is the only item that is not vegan.Sustainability and connection to the environment and his community are hallmarks of Rubba’s approach to running his business, which uses all sorts of local and seasonal ingredients while managing food waste and also looking after the welfare of his employees.His food is no joke either. He was named a Best New Chef by Food & Wine Magazine last year, and this year he won the James Beard Foundation Award for Outstanding Chef in the country. Rubba recently discussed his restaurant, his cooking, and his priorities.

David Burke has been wowing his customers and fellow chefs for decades. He was already executive chef of the legendary River Café in Brooklyn, N.Y. at the age of 26, and while he was there got a three-star review in The New York Times. He went on to head up the kitchens of the Smith & Wollensky restaurant group, including Park Avenue Café, Maloney & Porcelli, Cité, the Post House, and others, and became an expert at steak in the process. He went on to open critically acclaimed Davidburke & Donatella among other restaurants in New York City.These days he spends most of his time running restaurants in his home state of New Jersey, but he still has one restaurant in New York City, David Burke Tavern, and he’s planning on opening another one, a modern brasserie called 277 Park Avenue, later this year. He also recently started running the Port City Club in Cornelius, N.C.Burke is credited with having invented many dishes, including the swordfish chop and cake pops. He has treated guests to candles made of beef tallow that they could pour over their beef, and served food on blocks of pink Himalayan salt before anyone else was doing that. He also created an aging room for beef lined with the salt.In April 2022 he purchased 89-year-old Dixie Lee Bakery and incorporated its products into his business. He also recently established the David Burke Scholarship at Brookdale Community College in Lincroft, N.J., for which his annual donation of $10,000 pays the tuition for two students every year: one for a culinary arts major, and one for someone studying hospitality management. Burke recently discussed his approach to running restaurants, his perspective on where the industry is going, and food that he’s excited about.

Ria Montes has been chef de cuisine of Estuary at the Conrad Washington, D.C., hotel for a little over a year now, and in celebration of Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month in May, this Filipina American celebrated with her guests by laying out a traditional kamayan feast. Literally meaning “by hand,” this smörgåsbord is a customary celebration among family and friends.Montes was raised in a Filipino family in the Queens neighborhood of Forest Hills, N.Y., and developed a love of cooking when preparing meals with that family.She attended the French Culinary Institute in New York City and began cooking in restaurants there, including Smith & Wollensky and Andaz. She later moved to D.C. to work as sous chef under Brad Deboy at Blue Duck Tavern, and then moved on to work for Opie Brooks at A Rake’s Progress. That restaurant closed during lockdown and Montes worked at Albi, also. In D.C., and then rejoined Brooks at a new restaurant No Goodbyes, before joining the Conrad team.In this interview she discusses working with her senior sous chef Sean Tew, collaborating with other women chefs as well as sommeliers and farmers, and what she loves most about working in restaurants.