Chef and Owner of Restaurant Elizabeth (2027)

I was sixteen, things at home were bad, and I offered to skip the apprenticeship and stay and work instead. My mom told me, 'Jason, you have to help yourself first. Then you can help others.' She doesn't remember saying it. I've built everything since on it. The restaurant I'm opening in 2027 is named after her.

I staged at Gaggan in Bangkok when it was number one in Asia, and somewhere in that kitchen it flipped for me. I didn't want to be a stage in Michelin-starred restaurants anymore. I wanted to be the chef hosting the dinner. That sounds obvious written down, but it took me years and a lot of other people's kitchens to figure out. Knowing which one you actually want is the whole thing.

I spent thirty days training Muay Thai in Thailand at the start of my trip. Not as a wellness thing, I just wanted to be genuinely bad at something again and have to show up anyway. Cooking is the same muscle.

To manage my self-care, I stopped pretending the deadline was real. Nobody is making me do this trip. I'm doing it because I promised myself I would, and that turns out to be much more sustainable than manufactured pressure.

Right now, I find inspiration from staying still. I'm in South Africa cooking residencies back to back, and next month I'm at a lodge in Kenya for a full month cooking out of one kitchen garden, watching the same ingredients change week to week. I've never had that. Most of this industry is speed. Almost everything I've learned this year came from being somewhere long enough to notice something the second time.

If you're struggling, find the smallest room you can get into and stay in it a while. I'm cooking in a six-suite lodge, same guests night after night, and I'm learning more than I did in kitchens ten times the size. Big rooms let you hide. Small ones don't, and that's the point.