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HOST: ALICE CHENG
Welcome to Hospitality On The Rise, the podcast about the people shaping the hospitality industry and their journeys. I'm your host, Alice Cheng, founder and CEO of Culinary Agents, hospitality's go-to hiring platform. And I'm here to give you your dose of virtual mentorship.
Here, we'll be sharing the stories, lessons learned, and advice from hospitality leaders who've carved out their own path to success. After all, this industry is where many get their start and go on to do incredible things.
Whether you're a pro, starting out, or just love the hustle, this podcast highlights what makes hospitality extraordinary, the people.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
We're so excited to have Chef Jonathan Benno with us today. Jonathan is the Culinary Director at Four Twenty Five, which is part of Restaurants by Jean-Georges. And fun fact, from his time at Per Se, the first American-born and trained chef to earn three stars for Michelin. And without further ado–I think I'll just, like, that deserves a pause–Jonathan, welcome.
GUEST: JONATHAN BENNO
Thank you, it's good to see you.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
You as well. Hope everything is well with you. I'm so excited to have you share a little bit about your career path and some advice that you've picked up and maybe doled out along the way. How did it all get started?
GUEST: JONATHAN BENNO
I began my career washing dishes at a small restaurant in Connecticut called the Oxford House when I was, I think I was 15 because my mom had to drive me to work and pick me up before I got my driver's license.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
Starting in the dish pit. Nice.
GUEST: JONATHAN BENNO
It's a good place to start.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
Yeah, yeah, arguably one of the most important positions that keeps things on track and working properly. Was that something that was just temporary-slash-need to do something or were you already like, “I love this energy, this is going to be my thing”?
GUEST: JONATHAN BENNO
I went to high school with the brother of the– it was a couple that owned and operated the restaurant. So I went to high school with the chef's brother. So it was kind of an easy job. I would work Thursday or Friday, Saturday night. Sunday brunch was very busy, and it was completely different than anything I'd ever done. I had a paper route, I mowed lawns. Like, I was 15, and I'd never seen the back of the house of a restaurant before. And so yes, it was kind of the energy and the buzz working at night, working in what was a fast paced environment was really appealing.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
And did you, at that time, were you thinking, “Oh, one day I'm going to earn three Michelin stars or own and operate my own restaurant”?
GUEST: JONATHAN BENNO
No, I didn't even know what a Michelin star was at that point.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
Ignorance is bliss.
GUEST: JONATHAN BENNO
It wasn't... And it was a fun–”fun”–it was a high school job, and I enjoyed it and I liked the energy and there was always something. It was a small kitchen. It was the chef, another chef on the line, one person on the cold station who was some nights my friend from high school. But yeah, there was always something happening throughout.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
And had a lasting impact because then you went to The Culinary Institute of America.
GUEST: JONATHAN BENNO
Yeah, so I worked another job or two at restaurants in high school. And then at the end of high school, I really didn't know what I wanted to do. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go to college, start work, I didn't really know. And the only skill set I had was washing dishes and making salads. So I had another friend that grew up in Hawaii and he said, “Well, you know, why don't you, when you come out to Hawaii and work, come out for a summer and get a summer job?” And I said, “Cool, sounds great.” So I moved to Hawaii. I wound up staying there for about three years working in restaurants. And it was at that point that I realized–now I was 21, maybe 22 years old and I had now three years experience, full-time experience working in restaurants. That's the point at which I decided I want to pursue this as a career, and I want to go to The Culinary Institute of America. So I moved back home to Connecticut and started at The Culinary Institute.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
Well, it's common advice that I hear more often now where it's if you are unsure or you think you like it, go work for a little bit and then decide whether or not going to culinary school or getting the more formal education is right for you, depending on where you are.
GUEST: JONATHAN BENNO
I agree. School is… expensive. I mean, it's worth it, and it takes time. So it takes time and resources to go to school. And unless you're somewhat sure that this is what you want to pursue as a career path, 100%. If you think you want to go to culinary school, but you don't have a lot of restaurant experience, I would say get a job, get some experience, and try to work while you're going to school.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
And that's one of the beautiful things about this industry as well, that level of flexibility. It's one of the few ones where you can go kind of dip your toe in a little bit, and fall in love with it, move full force ahead and have options, or say this is not what I thought it would be and maybe have plenty of time to change course. But you clearly continued down your path and went to school and now you're out into, dare I say, the real world. And how did the next couple of opportunities kind of fall in place? Were you seeking specific types of things? How did you go about thinking?
GUEST: JONATHAN BENNO
One thing, as it often does in life, one thing led to the next thing. And by that I mean, when I was in school, I did my externship at a very famous resort in West Virginia called The Greenbrier. And I had a great experience down there. There was a chef working at The Greenbrier who had worked with another chef, John Farnsworth, who I went to go work with when I finished the second half of The Culinary Institute. And that was at a beautiful property, it's still there in Connecticut called the Mayflower Inn.
Finished school and decided that I wanted to move to San Francisco, got a job with Michael Mina at Aqua. Worked there for, it was about a year and a half, and then I heard about this restaurant that was opening in Napa called The French Laundry. He was a very famous chef from New York, Los Angeles, Thomas Keller. And there was a sous chef at Aqua that had worked with Thomas at Checkers in Los Angeles. And so he made the phone call to introduce me to Thomas. The opportunity came up. I went there to work.
I worked there for about a year and then Thomas called Daniel Boulud, because I wanted to move to New York. So The French Laundry led to a job at DANIEL, which was the original location, I guess the first DANIEL, which later became Café Boulud. And then also Thomas Keller is friends with Tom Colicchio, so he made the introduction. I worked at Gramercy Tavern for almost three years. Then Craft with Tom and Marco. And then the opportunity came up to… I guess begin preparing for the opening of Per Se. And that was contingent upon me moving back to California to work at The French Laundry. It was supposed to be a year. It wound up being about two and a half years.
But an incredible experience, of course, working at The French Laundry again, but also being in Yountville and being able to also work on pre-opening work for Per Se. That was really important, and in hindsight makes a lot of sense that in order to plan this restaurant in New York, I had to be in Yountville because that's where Thomas and the team were based.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
Sounds like Thomas had a little strategy there, a lot of foresight into putting you out there and into the New York City sphere of network and gaining this experience and then bringing you back home.
GUEST: JONATHAN BENNO
Yeah, I mean, I don't know if that was by design or not. But yeah, I mean, it all led and prepared me for the opening. I remember, there was a fire at Per Se that shut the project down for about three months. Then the re-opening of Per Se and then six years there.
And then it was 2008, and I had the goal of opening my own restaurant. And 2008 was a horrible time to try to raise money, especially as someone who had never opened, operated a restaurant for himself. So I decided to go to work for Nick Valenti and Joachim Splichal of Patina, who had signed the lease and were preparing to open Lincoln Restaurant. And originally Lincoln was gonna be a Patina, like the restaurant in Los Angeles, and then decided to change the concept to fine dining Italian. I joined the project and had another great six years at Lincoln.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
That was a really lovely space.
GUEST: JONATHAN BENNO
So it still is a beautiful restaurant on the Lincoln Center campus. And then I still had the goal to open my own restaurant. And after six years at Lincoln, I had the opportunity to partner–a partner, a financial partner, find a space, negotiate a lease, design it, build it, open it, everything that I dreamed about. You know, I certainly had the goal of doing this, and I was able to do it. And we got a really kind of quirky location on 27th Street between 5th and Madison, and it was in the Evelyn Hotel. And there were kind of three distinct spaces in the hotel. One was a bakery right on 27th Street. Just inside the lobby of the hotel, there was a casual restaurant–it was actually in another building that our partners owned, which was directly north of the Evelyn, where there was a fine dining restaurant called Benno. You know, start to finish, from the moment we started on that project, sadly until the moment we closed it, I guess it was about four years. It was COVID, it was during that period.
I think in the fall and winter of 2019, the restaurant got a great New York Times review. The restaurant got a Michelin star. We were optimistic about the business and the future of the business. COVID changed a lot. Sadly, we weren't able to, once things opened up again, we weren't able to build or regain momentum on 27th Street.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
Yeah, I remember you taking me through the space during construction and man, did you and the team really transform those spaces into something very special. So I would imagine and hope that when you think back that you and the team are still so proud of everything you created in that space. I personally got to enjoy many different aspects of it, whether it was the bakery, picking up cookies, grabbing your dried pasta, or eating at Leonelli and Benno. So it definitely made its mark in New York City dining for sure.
GUEST: JONATHAN BENNO
Well, thank you. And yes, certainly very proud of what we built there, what we were able to achieve there in a relatively short time. But wow, is New York a challenging place to do business, especially trying to navigate a business through COVID, come out the other side, and then try to rebuild the momentum that existed prior to COVID.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
Yeah. But everything you've learned–and you mentioned a couple of times that you had wanted to own your own restaurant, operate in a restaurant, you wanted your own restaurant, and seeing that project come to life and then going through such a massive global disruption, we'll call it. And then kind of taking a step back and thinking about, OK, what's next? Right? As many people and businesses had to do, evolve, change, pivot, whatever you want to say. Tell me about what that process was like, as far as thinking about, okay, what's next?
GUEST: JONATHAN BENNO
It was certainly, it was disappointing to close the businesses on 27th Street. And then thinking about what's next, I was able to– it was a friend who needed some help with a couple of big projects. So I was able to consult with him on a big project in Oklahoma City and a big project in New York, two really cool hotel projects. We got both those projects opened. And then that kind of brought my… I guess my commitment to the projects and to my friend who had helped me kind of came to an end. And then I really kind of asked myself, well, okay, we just consulted, worked on these two really cool projects. Now what's next? And I was very, very fortunate to be introduced to Jean-Georges management. I met with the chef and his team, and it was a pretty quick interview process. It was about a week from the first time we met to agreeing to move forward with the opening of Four Twenty Five. And it's been about 18 months. The restaurant opened in December of–I never get this right…
HOST: ALICE CHENG
December 23rd?
GUEST: JONATHAN BENNO
23, correct, yep. Yep.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
It's been 18 months already? Wow. Wow. And the quick interview process is probably because your reputation preceded you, right? Not a shabby resume that you've built for yourself over the years.
GUEST: JONATHAN BENNO
Yeah, agreed. I have the skill set or have developed the skill set to run large operations, and For Twenty Five is a large restaurant. There's significant private event space. We're very lucky. The bar lounge is super busy during the week.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
And recently receiving quite a few accolades, might I add, what was it? New York Times three star restaurant review, New York Times Critic Pick, 2024 named one of New York Times Best New Restaurants 2024, part of Esquire’s The Best New Restaurants in America 2024. Should I go on and on?
GUEST: JONATHAN BENNO
I didn't know there were that many.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
You must be very proud.
GUEST: JONATHAN BENNO
We're very very proud of all of them. Most recently, it was the New York Times review, which was fantastic. Huge morale boost, huge sense of pride for the team. There's a lot of young people that work here that have never worked for, I guess, a restaurant group like Jean-Georges management. And, you know, a big fancy fine dining restaurant on Park Avenue. Again, it was a huge sense of pride reading that review for myself and the team. And boy, people still pay attention to the New York Times because we could feel and see it on the reservation books shortly after the review. And we're still seeing the benefits of that review in terms of business.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
That's great. Congratulations. Well, well deserved.
GUEST: JONATHAN BENNO
Thank you.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
And selfishly, I'm so happy to continue to get to pop by because it's so close.You know, you mentioned a couple of– I kind of joked around, but I'm 100% serious about your resume and what you've done, and you're being modest with with me bragging about you. But, you know, you clearly worked for some powerhouses as well. And part of what we do here with Culinary Agents and Hospitality Career Paths is kind of try to extract a little bit of virtual mentorship and advice. And maybe sometimes that advice is passed on to you, and then you're passing it all along. Throughout some of this process, or you moving back and forth and kind of thinking about what the next step is and opening your own restaurant, is there like one or two pieces of advice that stuck out to you that either you kind of cultivated yourself that you shared or that somebody else shared with you?
GUEST: JONATHAN BENNO
I guess early on in my career we talked about school and the importance of school. I look back and would have liked to have or could have gone on to– I did the 18 month program at The Culinary Institute. When I was graduating, the very first class in the four year program was beginning. So it really wasn't an option to stay four years at The Culinary Institute. However, I could have gone on to a hospitality and restaurant management program. I guess what I'm saying is I wish I had had a little more accounting and management education training before I started working. I was, I think, really smart to work for the people that I worked for.
And really going back to… it was probably Craft , and I think that that was my first real sous chef or management role that I really heard about a P&L, and I wasn't, we… as a sous chef there, I certainly worked with Marco and Tom on food and labor costs. But wasn't as involved as I became certainly later at Per Se. And then beginning at Per Se, certainly at Lincoln, was able to work with some really, really good controllers, accountants. Finance people within the company who were so good about teaching and sharing, kind of navigating the P&L and figuring out how to impact it.
All the way up to today, working for Jean-Georgea management, which is now an international restaurant group, it goes without saying, incredibly disciplined as it relates to finance and running a business. So, you know, all the way up to today, still learning. I know a lot more about P&L today than I did, gosh, 20 years ago when I started at Per Se. But yeah, it was Per Se Lincoln, and certainly now Jean-Georges management where I was able to learn from the accounting-slash-finance team about food and labor costs and managing the other costs associated with running a large operation like the one at Four Twenty Five.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
Yeah, we hear that really often where it's like, especially for back of house or chefs–who know they want to own and operate their own business or at least or manage a large portion of a bigger business–is that cooking is half the battle. The other half is the business side or understanding and managing people and kind of other skills that people develop and learn and hone over time that is outside of just cooking, right? So it's just learning new skills, piling it on. You need to keep inspired, keep growing, keep learning and surround yourself with great people who are obviously also willing to share and teach you. How do you keep learning and growing? Or did you just share that?
GUEST: JONATHAN BENNO
I certainly learned a lot. Operating, getting it open and operating the businesses on 27th Street. The two projects that I was able to consult on, both in large hotels, which was new to me; I'd spent most of my career working in restaurants. So understanding room service, understanding banquets, understanding guest count in rooms. And then getting Four Twenty Five open and running it, you said it a moment ago, there's cooking, there's managing people, and then there's managing a business. And that's my… it's my job description in a sentence or two sentences. And I'm still… certainly the food and working with Jean-Georges and his team to create all of the different menus, meal periods, private events, that's a dynamic creative process. The menus change all the time. The philosophy, the chef's philosophy, he's I think, obsessed, is a good word, with the greenmarket and what's locally, hyper, hyper-seasonal.
And then, you know, the challenges of managing young people, because I'm not young anymore, and running the business.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
Yeah, I was talking to someone previously about generational diversity and how in this industry, oftentimes you have somebody who may be starting out in their career and are used to a certain set of tools or were taught a certain way, had different resources to them. And then you have people who've been in their career for many, many years and have learned other things and picked up other habits, etc., and getting them together to execute on service and to communicate and to work well together has a different set of challenges sometimes.
GUEST: JONATHAN BENNO
Yeah, and it's… There's no point in complaining about young people today, right? The reality is…
HOST: ALICE CHENG
Just different.
GUEST: JONATHAN BENNO
I, as a manager, as the chef, I have to adapt. You're not gonna get 25-year-olds to change. You just have to adapt to managing them, and bringing out the best in people, getting a group of people–not all of whom are 25–to work as a team, to operate at a very high level every day, right? You know, we're open seven days a week, we're open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner Monday through Friday. We're fortunate that we do a lot of private events here. So it's a really busy operation, never a dull moment, and managing the team–teams, plural–seven days a week is really tough.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
Yeah, well, you certainly are equipped to do that and clearly are doing a great job in getting the accolades and recognition. So congrats again. On that note, we're going to move to quick-fire. What advice would you tell your younger self?
GUEST: JONATHAN BENNO
I think we talked about it a minute ago. I would push myself? I would push my younger self to continue with education. Try to get that four-year degree in business and management while still working in restaurants.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
What's your advice for someone struggling in the industry?
GUEST: JONATHAN BENNO
Is this… Well, why, what are you struggling with? And is this the right industry or path for you?
HOST: ALICE CHENG
What's your advice for fellow hospitality leaders?
GUEST: JONATHAN BENNO
Continue learning. The business. continues to evolve and continues to become more challenging. Still incredibly rewarding. But yeah, it seems like every day there's a new set of challenges to overcome. And I think for me, the best preparation to deal with those challenges is to continue to push myself, to learn, push myself to ask questions.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
Great. With that, thank you so much, Chef Jonathan Benno, for spending your time and sharing your advice and your career path with us. We know that no two paths are the same and yours has so many different experiences, I think, rolled into your career here that it's extremely inspiring and also very informative. So thank you so much for your time and I look forward to seeing you soon.
GUEST: JONATHAN BENNO
Thank you, Alice.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
Remember, success looks different for everyone in hospitality. No two paths are the same. If you have a leader or a topic you want to hear about, email [email protected].
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