Executive Chef at Lenox Hill Hospital

It took me nearly burning out early in my career to realize what burnout is. Now that I know what that looks/feels like I can pace myself better, so I know when I need to back off and know when I can push myself.

I have been extremely fortunate to have been mentored by some of the industry greats and that has helped shape the way I work today. The one piece of advice I got in my first ever job at a local hotel in my hometown when I was sixteen was "Go find a kitchen to work in that is at the top end of the game, stay there for years and immerse yourself in the craft and culture of operating at that level. Everything you do after that in your career will always lead back to that foundation you got whilst working there." Not long after that conversation I started working at le Manoir aux Saisons under Raymond Blanc for four years that led to a job working for Daniel Boulud at Daniel which in turn continued to open doors for the rest of my career.

When hiring, the number one thing I look for is wanting to be better tomorrow than today. They have to have a hunger for improvement, the rest we can teach. Oh, and maybe even before that they have to want to be part of a team. When we have people in for kitchen trails, we really look a lot at how they interact with the team. You can learn a lot about someone from those interactions.

The ability to foster relationships and understand what each individual needs from you today are so important. When training chefs and managers I talk a lot about how we need to treat everyone the same, but manage everyone differently. You need to understand what people's learning styles are, what resonates with them, what motivates them, and then tailor your interactions based on those observations. So, a long-winded way of saying "people skills" are essential. That being said, I am not a fan of the term "people skills," I think at the end of the day you need to have the genuine desire to want to help people and be empathetic to where they are at.

My favorite place to find inspiration is the people I work with: we try to create an environment where everyone knows they have a voice and everyone gets to bring something to the table. When we work on the next season's menu the first brainstorming is done with the cooks, maybe they don't have a finished dish, but maybe there is something they want to learn or maybe a family recipe that can be incorporated.

For self-care, I try to laugh on a regular basis.

I enjoy listening to the following podcasts: 'The Drive' by Peter Attia, 'Ear Hustle,' 'A Bit of Optimism,' and '20-Minute Health Talk.'

BE POSITIVE, BE PRESENT, LEAD BY EXAMPLE.

At Lenox Hill we change our menus seasonally which in the past has not been normal practice for hospitals, so that constant evolution helps keep the team engaged and learning. We also created a kitchen cookbook lending library curated from used bookstore finds and my personal collection. Cooks can take them home or read them on their breaks. The goal is for them to think of food outside of our bubble. On top of that we are working on doing monthly cooking challenges amongst the cooks in small teams to foster creativity, teamwork and just to have some fun.

Working at Le Manoir set me on the right path in so many ways. Craft, sourcing the right ingredients but also the importance of always evolving, always growing. We were trained to train people coming up behind us. We could only move to the next section once we had trained someone to do the job as well as we could, and I think maybe this doesn't get stressed enough to young cooks. We all progress together.