Hillery Hargadine

From AI Entrepreneur to Plant-Forward Restaurateur, Meet ICE Alum Kiran Narayanan

abaker — Tue, 16 Jul 2024 15:10:18 +0000

From AI Entrepreneur to Plant-Forward Restaurateur, Meet ICE Alum Kiran Narayanan abaker Tue, 07/16/2024 - 11:10 /sites/default/files/styles/width_1400/public/content/blog-article/header-image/moglu-HERO.jpg.webp?itok=mryylmsc July 18, 2024

By Hillery Hargadine

Hillery Wheeler Hargadine has been with ICE since 2009 and is a graduate of ICE’s Restaurant and Culinary Management program. After over a decade with the Admissions team helping students to fulfill their dreams of enrolling in culinary school, she now enjoys profiling those same students in their new careers as Notable Alumni. In addition to alumni outreach, Hillery works on prospective student messaging and content. She currently lives in Toyko, Japan with her husband and son, and eats as much sushi and ramen as possible.

Chef and owner of Bangalore’s Mamacoco Hospitality Group, this Plant-Based Culinary Arts graduate is committed to bringing his passion for micro-cuisines and local, vegetarian dining to the masses.

With the sale of his AI manufacturing company, Unit X, Chef Kiran Narayanan found himself with the opportunity to launch an entirely new career.

He knew he wanted to focus on bettering the planet, but didn't know where to begin. Though Chef Kiran was unsure, his wife Ankita steered him in the obvious direction.

As Chef Kiran retells it, Ankita pointed out how all of the media he watched and read centered around one thing: food. He was quick to realize that a culinary career was the answer he had been searching for.

Chef Kiran has always known a deep love for food and flavor. As a boy in India, he loved to roast garden vegetables in the residual heat of his mother’s coal-fired oven. Every time the family moved — which was frequently due to his father’s job — Chef Kiran’s first order of business was befriending the local "aunties" so he could learn everything he could about how to prepare their local cuisines.

“There are so many different kinds of sauces and local vegetables that they would prepare, so that's where I started picking things up — I would learn from them,” he says. “So by the time I was in high school, my knowledge of Indian cooking was solid.”

This habit of learning from his matriarchs is something Chef Kiran is carrying through life. An avid traveler, one of his fondest travel memories is traipsing to rural Italy to learn how to make pasta from the grandmother of someone he met in Rome the night before.

“He was bragging about his grandmother's pasta and I was like, ‘I need to learn how to do that, and I need to go see her do it,’" Chef Kiran says. "It's amazing what happens when you just ask…and that's how I learned how to make pasta and marinara sauce.”

As Chef Kiran started focusing on his professional life, his curiosity about food, hospitality and health — both for himself and the planet — steered his direction. He found himself hosting large backyard parties and learning as much information about chefs, food and recipes as he could.

It was the combination of these curiosities that ultimately led him to ICE’s Plant-Based Culinary Arts program.

Chef Kiran planned a month in New York City to try out eateries and visit culinary schools, including ICE, all in an effort to start building a basis for the hospitality group he hoped to open in Bangalore.

The strategy was simple: find the best plant-forward culinary program to get vegetarian cooking experience and then open a fully-vegetarian fine dining restaurant. If the venture succeeded, it would allow him to expand into casual dining and quick-service establishments, and eventually shift the way people eat at home.

“Once that happens, then I can actually achieve my vision of changing the way people eat — making it more vegetarian, or veg-centric,” Chef Kiran says.

Chef Kiran was drawn to how efficient and focused ICE's Health Supportive (now Plant-Based) Culinary Arts program was.

“If you read enough about the program [you realize] it’s the most advanced plant-forward program there is," Chef Kiran says. "Also, the location was pretty much in the heart of Manhattan, which gave me the opportunity to work in places nearby.”

As a student, Chef Kiran was an avid volunteer at the ICE New York Campus' hydroponic farm, and within weeks of starting school found himself working the line at Amanda Cohen’s one-Michelin-starred vegetarian restaurant, Dirt Candy. Initially connected to the restaurant through his Chef-Instructor at ICE, he credits that experience as a transformative moment of working in the hospitality industry.

“It was my first day in a professional kitchen and they decided to put me on the pass for dinner service,” Chef Kiran says. “I thought ‘Is this really happening?’”

Chef Kiran didn’t have the luxury of second-guessing himself for long, as Dirt Candy’s open kitchen meant he was face-to-face with actual customers.

“I looked at the tweezers in my hand and realized my hand was shaking,” he says. “At that moment these two women sat down right in front of me and I was like ‘You know what, I need to take three deep breaths and really look like I know what I’m doing.’ Then a few minutes later I heard one of them say, ‘That guy looks like he knows what he’s doing.’ This was at the time when we were still wearing masks, so I don’t know if they saw me smiling behind my mask but I was.”

Between the confidence gained from working on the line in front of customers and the excitement of being at Dirt Candy when they were awarded their first-ever Michelin Star, Chef Kiran was hooked on the thrill of working in fine dining. It was this experience that he took with him when he moved back to India to launch Mamacoco Hospitality.

As Chef Kiran got ready to launch his fine dining endeavor, there were some key factors he knew he needed to focus on. One was the holistic approach to running a restaurant he garnered from his time at ICE.

“The biggest lesson I learned was that it’s not just about getting the skill to cook, it's also about the soft skills of working with people," he says. "If you want to set up your own business, trust matters a lot, so you need to have a helping mentality.”

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When it came to help, Chef Kiran also knew he couldn’t go into the endeavor alone, so he turned to his most valued teammate: his wife.

“No story of mine is complete without her…we've always worked and lived together,” he says. “So this wouldn't have been realized without her in it.”

Even the name of the restaurant, Moglu, and the restaurant group, Mamacoco Hospitality, are homages to the couple.

“Mamacoco is what I call her. And Moglu is what she calls me,” he says.

While Chef Kiran holds the role of Owner, Executive Chef and Creative Director, his wife Ankita is the Managing Director of the group.

Moglu opened in Bangalore in 2024 to rave reviews, including a write-up in YS Life, which called the restaurant a “celebration of vegetarianism.” This description aligns with Chef Kiran’s own explanation of his vision, too.

“We take [Indian] micro cuisine, which has amazing vegetarian food, and very deep flavors, usually even Sattvic food, and we showcase it," he says. "[After Moglu] we did a quick service menu format to sort of introduce it to the public all over India.”

The quick-service option is the second brand within Mamacoco Hospitality: Matka Junction.

With these successes under his belt, Chef Kiran is continuing to expand, with two more Bangalore locations of Matka Junction set to open this year, and a plan to take the brand “pan-India” in short order. This success is the culmination of his years of hard work and a clear vision for the future.

“I wanted to be a chef and start a restaurant group because I wanted to emphasize veg-forward eating," he says. "And I couldn’t have done it without the training I received from the experts at ICE.”

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From Celebrated Brooklyn Chef to Boise Hotelier, Meet ICE Alum Cal Elliott

abaker — Wed, 10 Jul 2024 18:07:14 +0000

From Celebrated Brooklyn Chef to Boise Hotelier, Meet ICE Alum Cal Elliott abaker Wed, 07/10/2024 - 14:07 /sites/default/files/styles/width_1400/public/content/blog-article/header-image/cal-elliot-hero.jpg.webp?itok=z4XLSjcY July 12, 2024

By Hillery Hargadine

“If you're willing to learn, you move up really quickly. I always found that opportunities in kitchens were always there — you just have to learn how to watch and observe and be respectful. If you do all those things, you'd be amazed how quickly you learn and how quickly you're appreciated.”

While Williamsburg, Brooklyn, has become an international tourist destination attracting top talent from a number of creative industries, Chef Cal Elliott was a player in the neighborhood’s food and beverage scene before, in his words, “Brooklyn became a brand.”

Now a restaurateur and proud owner of the newly opened boutique hotel The Avery in downtown Boise, Idaho, the ICE graduate has seen his fair share of changes throughout his many years in some of the country’s top kitchens. Ironically, Chef Cal’s first recollection of how he got into the culinary industry relates directly to the city he was committed to getting out of — Boise.

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“My greatest ambition at 18 years old was to get out of Idaho,” he says. “I managed to do that and moved to New York when I was 19 and started working in restaurants — because that’s what you do when you’re a kid in New York.”

Though restaurant work may be a common jumping-off point for people looking to establish themselves in the city that never sleeps, Chef Cal found the work suited him. By 1999, he was not only working in the kitchen of Dan Barber’s esteemed Blue Hill restaurant, but was also enrolled in ICE’s Culinary Arts program on the weekends.

“Culinary school for me was about investing in something,” Chef Cal says. “I invested in myself and my career, so it made me take it seriously. Everyone [today] wants to feel like they know everything…just because you read or watch a YouTube video, that doesn’t mean you know how to do something.”

Toward the end of his culinary program at ICE, Chef Cal externed at Diane Forster’s Verbena and later worked under Chef Tom Collichio at Gramercy Tavern. Then, a career-making job presented itself at Colin Devlin’s newly opened Dumont in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which was quickly transforming into a culinary mecca.

“I took that job — it was kind of crazy — and somehow I ended up being the [head] chef," Chef Cal says. "That was my first [head] chef job.”

DuMont was only the beginning. From there, Chef Cal helped open DuMont Burger and then Dressler, which quickly became a darling of the New York food scene, garnering two stars from The New York Times as well as a Michelin star. With these successes under his belt, Chef Cal was ready to take his next step and open a place of his own.

Chef Cal opened his restaurant, RYE, in 2009. It was a true labor of love.

“I was the sole proprietor, I did all the things you're not supposed to do," he says. "You spend all this time in kitchens, and then you're supposed to get investors and do all that. And I just opened it with my own money and built it myself — it was one of those Brooklyn DIY projects that you could still kind of get away with back then.”

And "get away" with it he did. Rye was a huge success, even spurring Chef Cal to repurpose the building’s basement into a speakeasy fittingly named “The Bar Below RYE.” The restaurant made Michelin’s Bib Gourmand list the first year it opened, a distinction it retained for the next 10 years until the realities of the ever-changing neighborhood became untenable and the lease was set to expire.

“I spent 30 years in New York and my parents were starting to get [older] and I thought, maybe it’s a good time to change locations,” Chef Cal says.

Even before shuttering RYE in 2018, Chef Cal had started investing in a future in Idaho with the purchase of a historic building in downtown Boise in 2015. He and his designer wife had always intended to refurbish the building back to its original purpose as a small, downtown hotel. Construction on the 14 million dollar project was set to start in 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic put a hold on that plan.

Chef Cal then pivoted to what he knew best: opening a restaurant.

With hotel construction on hold, Chef Cal and his wife kicked off their presence in the Boise hospitality scene with Little Pearl Oyster Bar and Little Pearl Bar. According to their website, Little Pearl is a bistro at heart, “seasonally-driven and oyster-helmed…with a focus on fresh seafood and refined comfort food.”

The couple hopes the visitors who come to Boise for business or vacation (fishing in the Boise River and Sun Valley’s Big Wood River, skiing and hiking in Bogus Basin) will visit The Pearl, and their now-open hotel, The Avery. Chef Cal looks to position The Avery as an alternative to "soulless" lodging in the Idaho capital.

“We have a lot going on nearby and we have a lot of amenities [as well as] cool, sexy rooms," he says. "And we’re on historic Main Street, so you walk out and all the buildings are 100-plus years old, so we have great walkability…we pretty much have everything at our disposal.”

After working with federal and local governments, including the Parks Department, the Elliotts’ completed a full historic renovation.

Chef Cal attributes his passion for the project to his Boise roots.

“You can’t fake the building, it was in disarray and in need of some love," he says. "We did a bunch of engineering upgrades and structural upgrades, so it was probably not the smartest thing from a financial standpoint but I think being born and raised in Boise, I care about it, and it was the right thing to do.”

Any chef who has spent time in a hotel restaurant will tell you it’s a vastly different experience from running a stand-alone restaurant, but Chef Cal believes he can side-step a lot of those frustrations by being the sole proprietor of the building.

“The fact that we’re one ownership entity gives me a lot more freedom and flexibility, though it also adds a lot of pressure," he says. "I have a little more leeway than a typical third-party restaurant in a hotel where there are all sorts of contractual obligations.”

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As Chef Cal embarks on his new role as Property Owner and Hotelier he still has a lot of reflections when it comes to staffing and running restaurant kitchens, now in an entirely different market. When asked what he looks for in hiring upcoming chefs, he’s clear that it all comes down to character and work ethic.

“I want someone that is going to show up to work on time, is going to listen and is going to be respectful and fit into a respectful environment," he says. "The hours are long and you need people who are team-oriented. People who are there because they want to be there, not because they have to be there.”

This mentality seems straightforward, but Chef Cal cites the rise of celebrity chefs and food TV as putting a misleading spin on what life is really like in the culinary industry.

“People see celebrity chefs and things on TV and they become disillusioned about what the job really is, and they go into it for the wrong reasons," he says. "It’s not for the faint of heart, but it is super fair. If you can do the job and you’re willing and you learn, you can move up really quickly.”

Chef Cal puts these philosophies into practice when it comes to running his own kitchens.

So what advice does Chef Cal have for people looking to open restaurants of their own these days? Beyond a good attitude and a willingness to learn, he advises people to enter the realm of restaurant ownership with an understanding of how the industry works from a business perspective.

“It’s a different game now, you have corporations who are working on their branding two years before they open…they’re working on their digital marketing and their SEOs," he says. "That’s what I found when we opened Little Pearl in a small community..opening a restaurant and [expecting] people to find you by word of mouth or by foot? That’s gone.”

Reflecting on his own entry into the industry by way of ICE’s culinary program, Chef Cal recalls when he first set the goal he now has achieved several times over.

“It gave me a career perspective," Chef Cal says. "Enrolling [at ICE] was me being like ‘Okay, I’m going to try to be the best cook and learn everything I can from the back of the house to the front, and hopefully I’m gonna steer my own ship someday.”

And that, he did.

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This ICE LA Grad Is Thriving In an Unexpected Corner of the Culinary World

abaker — Thu, 27 Jun 2024 16:25:54 +0000

This ICE LA Grad Is Thriving In an Unexpected Corner of the Culinary World abaker Thu, 06/27/2024 - 12:25 /sites/default/files/styles/width_1400/public/content/blog-article/header-image/Emerson-Majano-profile-HERO.jpg.webp?itok=mc7Wc1k2 Emerson Majano won a scholarship to ICE’s Health-Supportive Culinary Arts program and found his way to the weird and wonderful world of specialty foods and professional kitchen wares. June 27, 2024

By Hillery Hargadine

A visitor to the Surfas Culinary District website is greeted with a “new products page” that includes things like Hotaru matcha milk jam and a professional-grade stainless steel soda siphon.

While the average culinary enthusiast is welcome to shop the store, which describes itself as a “chef’s paradise,” the depot and cafe sections are designed to bring everything a professional chef or restaurateur needs under one roof. Answering the needs and wishes of these chefs is Emerson Majano, a graduate of the 51�Թ� Los Angeles.

The food and beverage industry is full of interesting and usual jobs the average person never considers when they think about embarking on a culinary career, including Chef Emerson. After winning the C-CAP scholarship to ICE’s Health-Supportive Culinary Arts program (now Plant-Based Culinary Arts), Chef Emerson was thrilled to land an externship at the exclusive Jonathan Club in downtown Los Angeles.

“It was an amazing experience because I got to see [techniques and] ingredients I didn't know existed, and put into practice what I learned in culinary school,” Chef Emerson says.

Chef Emerson's full title at Suras Culinary District is Sales Rep, Chef Consultant and Chef Assistant. But long before he was helping LA chefs find obscure molecular gastronomy ingredients or specialty equipment, he was a little boy in Honduras learning to cook — in secret.

“My dad didn't want me to cook,” Chef Emerson says. “He told me ‘You shouldn't be in the kitchen, that's a woman's thing. You should do something that a man does.’”

But Chef Emerson had someone in his corner who supported his passion.

“My grandma got so mad," he says. "She said, ‘Your dad is wrong, it’s not only women who cook.’”

His grandmother was committed to making sure her grandson understood the opportunities that existed for men who were interested in cooking. At the time, "MasterChef USA" was airing in Honduras with a Spanish translation.

“My grandmother said, ‘We’re going to watch this show so you can see all these men cooking,” he says.

From that point forward, Chef Emerson immersed himself in learning everything he could from his abuela, sourcing fresh produce and gathering eggs from the chickens in his backyard. And all the while, he kept this secret from his father.

“When I heard the car engine pulling up I knew my dad was coming, so I would run to change my clothes and put on cologne to hide the smell of the smoke from the clay oven we used, and find something else to look busy with when he came in the door,” he says. “My grandmother had my back, [and] said ‘Don’t worry, I'll never say you were cooking with me.’”

When Chef Emerson’s parents divorced and his abuela passed away, he and his mother moved to the US. He suddenly found himself in a local Los Angeles high school looking for a way to improve his English and find a way to navigate this new world.

“Everything was completely different — and not what I expected it to be,” he says. “[Los Angeles had] a lot of different cultures, a lot of different flavors and many, many things that blew my mind.”

That’s when C-CAP (Careers through Culinary Arts Program) came into his life.

When one of his teachers and mentors asked him what he wanted to do after high school, he was at a loss. The only thing he could think of was that he loved to cook, but even with his disapproving father thousands of miles away, he was hesitant to admit what he had kept a secret for so long.

“I said I liked cooking — I didn’t admit that I loved it," Chef Emerson says. "And [the teacher] said ‘Well we have this after-school cooking program maybe you would like.’”

With his mother’s support, Chef Emerson threw himself into the C-CAP program, eventually winning the city-wide competition and a scholarship to ICE’s Health-Supportive Culinary Arts career training program at the Los Angeles campus.

Chef Emerson still remembers the moment he found out he won.

“[The C-CAP directors] called me and said ‘We have some news,’ and when they told me I won the scholarship to ICE I just immediately started crying," he says. "My mom asked what was wrong and I told her I’m the first person in our family to go [past high school] and she said ‘Abuela did this.’ I couldn’t believe it, my dream was coming true.”

Not only did Chef Emerson feel guided by his grandmother, but the Health-Supportive program specifically felt like a return to his roots.

“I was so excited because the Health-Supportive program reminded me a lot of my grandma, using all plant-based organic, everything from her garden,” he says. “And it was amazing being at ICE, it completely changed my life.”

After graduating and completing his externship, Chef Emerson met the same fate as so many in the hospitality industry did when the COVID-19 pandemic hit — the restaurant where he worked closed. Around the same time, he was looking to invest the $500 reward he received from Chef Monti Carlo as a C-CAP winner into expanding his culinary tool kit.

Looking for guidance, he went to one of his ICE chef-instructors to find out where serious professionals get their wares.

“Chef Mike [Pergl] said, ‘We’re going to Surfas. That’s where chefs shop,’” Chef Emerson says.

Completely delighted the minute he set foot in the store, a conversation with the manager quickly turned into a job opportunity of working in the prepared food section in the kitchen.

Chef Emerson started thriving at Surfas — so much so, that he transitioned into a sales position. He now spends his days ordering ingredients, assisting chefs or amateur cooks in finding specific tools or ingredients and helping customers find substitutions for their recipes, putting to use the knowledge he gained in the Health-Supportive program.

When Chef Emerson reflects on what it took to get to this point — sneaking around to learn to cook, teaching himself English to succeed in his high school cooking program and braving the unknown to attend culinary school in Los Angeles — he can’t help but be proud.

“I remember I was about to quit, like a month before our classes were done because I was so exhausted from working, commuting an hour to school, getting out late and then doing it all over again the next day," he says. "But I [thought to myself] ‘Keep pushing. Don't forget what your goal was — to get that diploma.’ And now I can say I've made it.’’

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Meet the Speaker: Mashama Bailey

abaker — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 19:09:17 +0000

Meet the Speaker: Mashama Bailey abaker Thu, 04/25/2024 - 15:09 /sites/default/files/styles/width_1400/public/content/blog-article/header-image/womens-month-round-up-HERO_0.jpg.webp?itok=roNHJpOC The James Beard Award-winning Chef and ICE Alumna will speak at ICE New York's commencement on May 22 April 25, 2024

By Hillery Hargadine

Mashama Bailey, chef, restaurateur, author, James Beard Award winner and the subject of her own episode of “Chef’s Table,” will be bestowing her hard-earned wisdom upon the next generation of culinary and business professionals as the Keynote Speaker for ICE New York’s 2024 commencement ceremony in May.

Few chefs have blazed onto the American dining scene with such universal praise as Chef Mashama Bailey.

Born in New York City — in the Bronx, specifically — Chef Mashama spent some of her formative years in Savannah, Georgia, before returning to the Big Apple, this time in Queens. Though she's cooked in some of New York's most lauded establishments and has staged in Burgundy, France, it was time spent cooking for her family that had the greatest impact on the chef she would become.

After graduating from ICE’s New York campus in 2000 with a diploma in Culinary Arts, Chef Mashama launched her cooking career at the famed Aquagrill before testing out various other cooking environments, including as a caterer and personal chef in NYC, and staging at Château du Fey in Burgundy, France. Three years spent working under Chef Gabrielle Hamilton at the legendary NYC restaurant Prune led Chef Mashama to the opportunity that would launch her into the stratosphere of the culinary world.

It was Chef Gabrielle who introduced Chef Mashama to her future business partner, John O. Morisano, who had purchased a dilapidated Greyhound bus station in Savannah with the vision of transforming it into a restaurant.

Thus, in 2014, The Grey was born.

Chef Mashama combined her unique take on “Port-City Southern” cuisine with Morisano's business acumen and wine expertise in order to create The Grey. The duo would eventually write a best-selling book, "Black, White and The Grey: The Story of an Unexpected Friendship and a Landmark Restaurant" about their experience opening and running a restaurant together.

The Grey was an immediate success in the national culinary scene, with accolades pouring in. It was nominated for the James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant in 2015 and was named one of Food & Wine’s “Best New Restaurants of 2015.” In 2017, the restaurant was named Eater’s Restaurant of the Year and earned a spot on Time magazine’s “World’s Greatest Places” list in 2018. Chef Mashama herself was nominated for a James Beard Award in the category of Best Chef: Southeast in 2018, winning the category the following year and winning the ultimate award of Outstanding Chef in 2022.

Beyond the formal recognition of awards, Chef Mashama has been featured as a guest on “Top Chef,” profiled in the opening episode for season six of Netflix’s hit show “Chef’s Table,” and interviewed along with industry legends like Lidia Bastianich and Cat Cora for the documentary “A Fine Line” about the experience of women in the restaurant industry.

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Chef Mashama is also the Chairperson of the Edna Lewis Foundation which “works to revive, preserve and celebrate the rich history of African-American cookery by cultivating a deeper understanding of Southern food and culture in America," per its website.

In numerous interviews, Chef Mashama credits Ms. Lewis as an ultimate inspiration for what it means to be a Black female chef in the South. In the essay she contributed to “Edna Lewis: At the Table with an American Original” (University of North Carolina Press, 2018), Chef Mashama shares that an early homework assignment from her Chef-Instructor at ICE to write an essay about a professional chef she admired is what brought Ms. Lewis to her consciousness in the first place.

“I wanted to write about someone who looked like me and like my mother and grandmothers," she says in her essay. "I began my search for a chef that I could admire. I started trolling around on the Internet without finding much on the subject of notable black women cooks. I searched at the public library, and after some digging, I found an article about a woman called Edna Lewis.” Saying that while many of her fellow classmates had never heard of Ms. Lewis, her Chef-Instructor had, and introduced her to Ms. Lewis’ plethora of cookbooks. She finishes the moment of reminiscence saying, “I prepared [Lewis’] boiled Virginia ham recipe with mustard and rosemary for our final exam. I got an A−.”

Chef Mashama Bailey. Photo courtesy: Chia Chong

As Edna Lewis was an inspiration to her, Chef Mashama continues to be an inspiration to chefs across the country, especially those looking to focus their careers on regional cuisine. In recognition of this, ICE recently launched the Chef Mashama Bailey Tuition Waiver. The recipient of the new scholarship will receive a $20,000 waiver toward the Culinary Arts program at the New York or Los Angeles campuses. Preference for the scholarship is given to applicants looking to pursue American Southern regional cuisine, just like Chef Mashama.

In addition to The Grey, Chef Mashama and her business partner recently opened The Grey Market and The Diner Bar at the Thompson Hotel in Austin, Texas. The Diner Bar is a full-service restaurant, while The Grey Market is a combination of a classic Southern lunch counter and a New York City-style bodega — a fitting tribute to the regions that shaped Chef Mashama as a person and a chef.

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Meet the Speaker: Chef Evan Funke

abaker — Thu, 18 Apr 2024 19:33:51 +0000

Meet the Speaker: Chef Evan Funke abaker Thu, 04/18/2024 - 15:33 /sites/default/files/styles/width_1400/public/content/blog-article/header-image/P2023_Funke_Hollywood-0740%20by%20Eric%20Wolfinger-HERO.jpg.webp?itok=-Aq5vq5E Photo by Eric Wolfinger April 23, 2024

By Hillery Hargadine

ICE’s Los Angeles campus welcomes the West Coast’s pasta master to speak at our 2024 commencement ceremony.

A self-described “culinary storyteller and custodian of Italian tradition,” Evan Funke’s name is synonymous with elaborate hand-rolled pasta in the American culinary scene.

With four restaurants, two James Beard Award nominations, two cookbooks and an eponymous documentary (produced by Tastemade, now streaming on Peacock), Chef Funke has built an empire through his commitment to classical pasta preparation.

One of the five children of Oscar-winner Alex Funke (for Best Visual Effects), Chef Funke spent his formative years in Southern California, trying out various potential career paths, including art school and joining the Marine Corps. Chef Funke eventually realized his love of cooking and headed off to culinary school.

After graduation — and a short stint as a culinary school instructor — Chef Funke started to make a name for himself in the kitchen of Chef Wolfgang Puck’s long-heralded Spago.

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It was at Spago that Chef Funke started his journey with pasta, which would soon become his obsession. As a result, he set out to Bologna, Italy, and the school of master pasta maker Alessandra Spisni, La Vecchia Scuola Bolognese.

This experience of becoming a sfoglino (or maker of sfoglia, a sheet of hand-rolled fresh pasta) was a turning point for Chef Funke's career. His return to LA brought with it his first time helming a kitchen at the ever-popular Rustic Canyon. From there he opened the instant LA sensation, Bucato. This would be the first but certainly not the last time one of Chef Funke's restaurants featured a dedicated pasta lab.

After the closure of Bucato in 2015, Chef Funke stepped away from the restaurant scene before joining forces with Gusto 54 restaurant group founder, Janet Zuccarini, to open Felix on Abbot Kinney Boulevard, one of greater LA’s hottest strips of real estate just off Venice Beach. Felix was an instant success. Within a year of opening, it was named Eater’s Restaurant of the Year, Esquire Magazine’s “#1 Best New Restaurant in America” and was a finalist for the James Beard Foundation’s coveted Best New Restaurant Award.

Since then, Chef Funke seems to be unstoppable. The success of Felix, with its star-studded clientele (including Beyoncé and the Obamas), catapulted the chef into the upper echelons of Los Angeles food and beverage tastemakers. In relatively quick succession he opened Mother Wolf in LA’s West Hollywood neighborhood to instant acclaim, and most recently opened Funke, a three-level, 10,000-square-foot Beverly Hills culinary destination. The restaurant opened in May of 2023 and has already nabbed itself a place in Michelin's California guide.

In addition to his family of Los Angeles-based restaurants, Chef Funke has lent his expertise and brand to hotel restaurants across the country. Spin-off locations include Mother Wolf Las Vegas in the Fontainebleau resort and casino, and most recently Tre Dita in the St. Regis Chicago. The latter having just opened last month (March 2024) was named one of Michelin Guide’s “most anticipated new restaurants for 2024.”

With this bevy of experience in both the art of cooking and the business of restaurant management, ICE students at our 2024 Los Angeles commencement have much to learn from Chef Funke.

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ICE Grad Esther Choi Hosts New Chef Competition Show

abaker — Mon, 15 Apr 2024 20:31:58 +0000

ICE Grad Esther Choi Hosts New Chef Competition Show abaker Mon, 04/15/2024 - 16:31 /sites/default/files/styles/width_1400/public/content/blog-article/header-image/esther-choi-HERO.jpg.webp?itok=l7SuPVnl Chef Esther Choi speaking at ICE NY Commencement. "24 In 24: Last Chef Standing" premiered on April 14 April 15, 2024

By Hillery Hargadine

"24 In 24: Last Chef Standing" premiered on April 14 with Esther Choi, an ICE Alumna and the Chef and Owner of multi-outpost restaurant mŏkbar, co-hosting the series alongside fellow restaurateur Michael Symon.

Following in the footsteps of ICE Alumni like Gail Simmons (host, “Top Chef”), Vivian Howard (host, “A Chef’s Life”); Marc Murphy (recurring judge, “Chopped”) and more who have been mainstays in the world of food tv, Chef Esther is making her hosting debut on The Food Network’s newest competitive cooking show “24 In 24: Last Chef Standing.”

Chef Esther is no stranger to the world of cooking tv, with a resume including “Iron Chef: Quest for a Legend,” “Bobby’s Triple Threat,” “Throwdown with Michael Symon” (who is now her co-host), “Chopped” and “Battle of the Brothers.” She has also hosted several web series, including the Hot Ones spin-off Heat Eaters. That being said, “24 In 24: Last Chef Standing” will be her first recurring position as a host on a major TV network. Chef Esther was also featured in the 2021 documentary “Her Name Is Chef,” exploring women’s experiences in the restaurant industry.

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According to the Food Network’s announcement on their website, the show’s premise is to test the limits of 24 chefs, giving them 24 hours to complete 24 food challenges with a grand prize of $50,000 and a “trip of a lifetime.” The concept is an attempt to replicate the chaos and intensity of a real-life restaurant chef, a reality with which Chef Esther is very familiar.

As the Chef and Co-owner of Korean mŏkbar restaurants, as well as the Lower East Side gastropub Ms Yoo, Chef Esther has made a career out of honoring her Korean heritage through food. Though she herself lived in Korea for three years as a child, Chef Esther credits her grandmother's (or "halmeoni" in Korean) creative takes on Americanizing Korean food with inspiring mŏkbar’s menus.

Heralded as a bonafide star in the culinary space, Chef Esther’s place as co-host of one of Food Network’s most anticipated new shows is sure to solidify her place as a national food personality. And, it’s an opportunity to introduce her unique take on what it is to be a Korean-American chef to a broader audience.

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Cookbooks Written by Female Chefs

abaker — Mon, 25 Mar 2024 19:21:42 +0000

Cookbooks Written by Female Chefs abaker Mon, 03/25/2024 - 15:21 /sites/default/files/styles/width_1400/public/content/blog-article/header-image/cookbooks-womens-history-month-HERO.jpg.webp?itok=XQMclFaD In honor of Women’s History Month, get librarian Rose Kernochan's cookbook recommendations March 25, 2024

By Hillery Hargadine

ICE New York's resident culinary librarian, Rose Kernochan, weighs in on her top recommendations for cookbooks, memoirs and behind-the-scenes tell-alls.

Women in the kitchen is not a new phenomenon. In fact, you’ll find interviews with chefs across the world, in all types of cuisine and at all levels of sophistication stating they learned to cook from their mother, their grandmother or their auntie.

We asked ICE New York’s head librarian Rose Kernochan to recommend what she considers essential reading for Women’s History Month. Below you’ll find her top picks of cookbooks, memoirs and compiled interviews by and about the women who shape kitchens near and far, whether that’s the grandmothers of Africa or chef-owners right here in the US.

Read on to get inspiration from some of the women who help the world of food continue to turn.

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“The Korean Vegan: Reflections and Recipes from Omma’s Kitchen”

By Joanne Lee Molinaro

The blogger and Tiktok chef (@thekoreanvegan) takes the stories and passion that made her an internet star and translates them onto the page. Weaving narratives about her family with reimagined takes on traditional Korean dishes, all prepared with exclusively vegan ingredients, Chef Molinaro’s book is an example of how to incorporate a plant-based diet into your life while still enjoying the meals that bring you comfort. Though this is Chef Molinaro’s first book, it's a runaway success, shooting to the top of the New York Times' best-sellers list and earning her a James Beard Award.

"Love Korean spices — but hate eating all that meat?," asks Rose. "This cookbook has been enormously popular in the ICE library, and not just with the Plant-Based crowd."

“In Bibi’s Kitchen: The Recipes and Stories of Grandmothers from the Eight African Countries that Touch the Indian Ocean”

By Hawa Hassan with Julia Turshen

"'In Bibi’s Kitchen' is a gorgeous read, and it’s one of the first books I purchased for the ever-growing Africa section in ICE’s library," Rose says. "It makes a great introduction to this popular cuisine."

Grandmas, or “bibis” from eight different countries have lent their lifetimes of knowledge to Somali Chef Hawa Hassan and food writer Julia Turshen for this James Beard Award-winning collection.

Composed of 75 recipes from various countries touching the Indian Ocean — including Mozambique, Eritrea, Madagascar, South Africa and more — this colorful look into the cuisines of Africa highlights the rich union of local produce with the now-ubiquitous spices that made these countries invaluable stops in the international spice trade. Along with the traditional recipes come stories of wars, migrations and colonizations and the grandmothers that used food to nourish the bodies and souls of their loved ones through it all.

“Skirt Steak: Women Chefs on Standing the Heat and Staying in the Kitchen”

By Charlotte Druckman

It’s been over a decade since journalist Charlotte Druckman set out to document the experiences of women in professional kitchens, but these stories are no less relevant today than they were then. Legendary chefs like Alice Waters and Christina Tosi share their experiences of being women in this traditionally male-dominated industry, and the pressures, egos and stresses that come along with navigating grueling kitchen life, as well as the ever-present social expectations of what it means to be a woman.

"The chef memoir — one of my favorite types of books to read — is essentially a hero’s story, in which a young cook threads his way through a path of thorny obstacles to culinary triumph," Rose says. "With a few exceptions, like Gabrielle Hamilton’s 'Blood, Bones and Butter,' women chefs have been too busy hacking their way through the undergrowth to sit down and write their own story. I’m waiting for some meaty female chef memoirs to hit the bookstore shelves soon — in the meantime, this reportage from Charlotte Druckman is a good placeholder."

“Black, White and the Grey: The Story of an Unexpected Friendship and a Beloved Restaurant”

By Mashama Bailey and John O. Morisano

ICE alumna and James Beard Award-winning Chef Mashama Bailey, along with her business partner John O. Moisano, chronicles the life-changing experience of turning a run-down bus station into one of the country’s most revered restaurants in this compelling memoir. Bailey and Morisano bring the reader along on the tribulations and triumphs that come with bringing a vision to life, and what they learned about business and biases along the way.

"Before beginning their culinary careers, students need to know what could lie ahead," Rose says. "Books of practical advice — David Boulud’s 'Letters to a Young Chef,' for instance — are helpful, but so are accounts from chefs working on the front line, like Jacques Pépin’s 'The Apprentice,' Marcus Samuelsson’s 'Yes, Chef' — or this moving story of partners collaborating to make a restaurant work."

“Momofuku Milk Bar”

By Christina Tosi

When Christina Tosi showed up to help David Chang produce a food safety plan for his much-beloved Momofuku restaurant, it’s hard to believe either of them knew the incredible dessert empire it would launch. With a foreword from Chang himself, this debut cookbook by Tosi became an instant classic, and the universally beloved recipes it contains make it clear why this two-time James Beard Award-winning pastry chef inspired an entire generation of women bakers to copy Tosi’s signature Rosie-the-riveter style while hoping too also follow in the footsteps of her meteoric rise.

"This one was really popular with students at the French Culinary Institute when I was the librarian there," Rose says. "Doubly so because Tosi, like her fellow Momofuku chef David Chang, was an FCI grad!"

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ICE Alumnae Who Inspire

abaker — Mon, 18 Mar 2024 18:05:26 +0000

ICE Alumnae Who Inspire abaker Mon, 03/18/2024 - 14:05 /sites/default/files/styles/width_1400/public/content/blog-article/header-image/womens-month-round-up-HERO.jpg.webp?itok=TCW8fomM ICE Alumna Mashama Bailey accepting the 2022 James Beard Award for Outstanding Chef. March 18, 2024

By Hillery Hargadine

ICE alumni can be found thriving across the food and beverage industry. In honor of Women’s History Month, we’ve collected stories about some of the women who made ICE part of their journey and continue to inspire us every day.

They’re being recognized by The James Beard Foundation
Meet the six ICE alumnae who were recognized as semi-finalists for the 2023 James Beard Awards.

They’re leading with heart
This Marine Corps veteran transitioned from serving her country to serving up sweet treats.

They’re business moguls
Alumna and culinary force Chef Rachel Yang’s abilities not just in the kitchen, but in the world of restaurant management, have led to an ever-growing empire in the Pacific Northwest.

They’re putting pen to paper
These five alumnae jumped from the kitchen to the page with the launch of their cookbooks.

ICE alumna Susete Araujo.

They’re taking the plunge
Chef Susete Araujo’s lifetime in Brazil developed her love of food and cooking. After taking a chance and braving the move to America, she honed her skills at ICE and wound up at one of the world’s best restaurants.

They’re turning their passion into profit
ICE alumna Chef Rasheeda Purdie fell in love with ramen, and cultivated that love into her pop-up business “Ramen by Ra,” developing creative and unique ramen flavors to serve around the country.

They’re reinventing themselves
Immigration lawyer turned sailboat chef Leslie Lipton knew she was ready to finally follow her dream of culinary school, and launched a new career in her 50s.

Lede photo by Jeff Schear/Getty Images for James Beard Foundation⁠.

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Resolution Inspiration: ICE Alumni Changed Their Lives to Pursue Their Passion

abaker — Thu, 07 Dec 2023 16:02:19 +0000

Resolution Inspiration: ICE Alumni Changed Their Lives to Pursue Their Passion abaker Thu, 12/07/2023 - 11:02 /sites/default/files/styles/width_1400/public/content/blog-article/header-image/personal%20chef%20header.jpeg.webp?itok=FZ956rPd Credit: Kyle James These six alumni changed their careers to pursue their dream jobs December 7, 2023

By Hillery Hargadine

For some people, the path to a professional culinary career isn't a straight line.

Being a career changer in culinary school is more common than many people may think. Here are some stories about ICE alumni who changed careers to become the successful culinarians they are today.

Leslie Lipton
After decades as an immigration lawyer, Leslie decided to follow her gut and eventually landed her dream job, catering cocktail parties for New York harbor sailboats.

Kathleen Lewandowski & Stephen Lampshire (pictured in the image at the top of the article)
These two alumni pivoted from their print media backgrounds in their 30s and 40s to commit to their passion for food and eventually start their own private chef businesses.

Everton Tulloch
After 15 years of working his way up to Director of Sales for a major international brand, a round of layoffs and an encounter with Steve Harvey set Everton on course to open his own food truck.

Charles Taylor
A youthful passion for martial arts and a stint in the military led Charles to open his own MMA training gyms, but his mid-40s saw another shift — this time into the pastry kitchen at ICE New York, and eventually to France to revisit his love of baking.

Amy Baer Robinson
In addition to her career as a musician and film composer on both coasts, Amy found solace from work stress in hosting dinners and culinary events for friends — one visit to ICE’s LA campus made her realize her future was in food. Chef Amy now hits the right notes in her private event and culinary education club Epicurean Santa Barbara.

Ready to do what you love? Get more information about ICE’s on-campus and online professional training programs here.

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How to Choose a Wine Glass

abaker — Mon, 27 Nov 2023 14:00:00 +0000

How to Choose a Wine Glass abaker Mon, 11/27/2023 - 09:00 /sites/default/files/styles/width_1400/public/content/blog-article/header-image/wine-glasses-hero.jpg.webp?itok=NiTfUhwS White wine glasses, red wine glasses and what they should cost August 30, 2024

By Hillery Hargadine

In honor of International Cabernet Sauvignon Day, ICE’s Dean of Wine Studies and Master Sommelier Scott Carney weighs in on the wide variety of stemware, including what’s best for a boat.

There can be an overwhelming number of options when stocking your barware collection. Do you really need a special glass for every type of grape? Is a Champagne flute the best bet for sparkling celebration wines? Or what about the coupe? (Side note: was the coupe really modeled after an unspeakable body part of Marie Antoinette?)

Scott Carney, Dean of Wine Studies for ICE’s Intensive Sommelier Training and Master Sommelier, took the time to share some insights on how to choose the right wine glasses for you.

Do I really need fancy wine glasses?

Probably not. As with most things related to wine, it depends on how deep you want to go into the nuances of grape varieties and the age of the vintage. You can certainly find obscurely specific stemware based on particular factors, but the general wisdom across the industry is that for the vast majority of people, a handful of all-purpose (or AP) white wine glasses and red wine glasses are all you really need.

That being said, if you’re looking to stock a restaurant or wine bar with a high-brow wine program, that may be different.

“It’s all contextual,” Mr. Carney explains. “What you do at home with whatever limited space you have will be different than a restaurant making a statement about their wine program with their glassware.”

The other thing to consider is that, like fashion, the wine world has trends that fall in and out of favor. In the 1980s and '90s Maximilian Riedel, of the Austrian crystal company, made an effective argument (and a fortune off the idea) that stemware specially designed based on grape variety would bring that particular wine to its highest potential. So if you are a ‘Burgundy only‘ household you can spring for the special Burgundy glass, but otherwise save your money — and your cabinet space — and keep it simple.

According to Mr. Carney and many of his fellow Master Sommeliers, AP glasses are actually the preferred standard in the industry today, even among high-end restaurant wine programs.

“Many restaurants use an identical glass for their red and white by-the-glass pours,” he says. This philosophy also extends to selecting stemware for his sommelier training classes. “We’re trying to create as clinical a setting as possible, so we actually want to neutralize the impact of the glass so that every wine can be evaluated evenly.”

Related: Wine Terms to Know

So what wine glasses should I buy?

Classes at ICE use the Zwilling Predicat line, but Mr. Carney has previously used a Riedel multi-purpose glass, which he calls “an absolutely lovely glass.”

He also recommends The One glasses by fellow Master Sommelier Andrea Robinson who quips on her website video “As a mom and a master somm, [my glasses are] dishwasher safe and break-resistant.” Another fellow Master Sommelier, Jancis Robinson out of the UK, has teamed up with tableware designer Richard Brendon to produce a well-regarded glass that can be broadly utilized.

If you’re looking to impress, feel free to splurge on the luxury Austrian crystal brand Zalto, which Mr. Carney calls “glassware for the residing elite,” and describes as “so light and delicate, they’re miraculous…but they can cost up to $100 a stem.”

If that’s a little rich for your blood, don't worry — Mr. Carney’s general guidance is not to spend more than five to $10 dollars per glass.

“You don’t need to go crazy on this, just maintain them and make sure they’re cleaned properly,” he says. That said, he confesses to being a “geek” when he preps his own glassware for dinner parties. “I’m steaming them up and making certain everything is nice — but that’s just part of my nerdy therapy.”

But I definitely need special glasses for Champagne, right?

Nope! Of your Champagne glass options, the coupe glass (also known as the Marie Antoinette glass — a quick Google search will explain the lore there) associated with the post-Prohibition roaring 20s has largely fallen out of favor. When asked if there was ever a moment the coupe was the appropriate glass, Mr. Carney’s immediate response was: “Yeah, for a cocktail.”

While a coupe is a fun idea for an old-timey party, the wide mouth and short stem pretty much guarantee that your bubbles will evaporate quickly if the heat from your hand doesn’t warm it up first — the worst possible combination of things.

With these concerns in mind, you’d think the tall, narrow Champagne flute is the ideal glass for champagne, but that has also recently been debunked. While flutes will always reign supreme when it comes to the effervescent joy of maximizing bubbles for a celebration, the fashion for serious tasters these days is to serve Champagne in a regular AP glass to truly appreciate the complex flavors of the terroir rather than focusing solely on preserving bubbles.

Mr. Carney cites the advent of “grower Champagne” or “farmer fizz” of the early 2000s for this shift. Historically most of the region funneled their grapes to the large Champagne houses, which in turn combined various vintages from a wide variety of farmers to create the consistent NVs (non-vintages) associated with their house brand — but that changed when the farmers decided to make their own wines to highlight the nuances of their particular terroir.

Per Mr. Carney, “In parallel with that came this idea that the wine itself should be explored now. It’s not just about the bubbles, there are soils and a sense of place that can manifest in the wine, and the AP glass was seen as the vehicle for doing that.”

How many glasses are in a bottle of wine?

As with almost everything: it depends. A 750mL bottle contains approximately 25.4 ounces of wine, so when it comes to serving at home that’s really up to you, but pretty much all wine glasses are designed to be filled to the widest part of the glass. Even if you can fit six ounces into your wine glass, that doesn’t always serve you, especially if you’re opening a special bottle and want to fully appreciate the unfolding of flavor that comes as a wine breathes. Overfilling also limits the space you have in the bowl to swirl and sniff.

When you get into the professional world of sommeliers, there is a lot more to consider. All restaurants will consider their profit margin first and foremost, which means standardizing pours.

For most, this means five ounces per glass (leaving the extra .4 ounces for any residual in the bottle), which translates to five glasses of wine in a bottle.

According to Mr. Carney, beyond the simple division, “There’s hope that [five ounces of wine] won’t last the appetizer and the entree and that you’ll need a second glass somewhere down the line.”

He also cites the relatively recent trend of a “tasting pour,” traditionally about three ounces and offered at a lower price than a full glass. Mr. Carney describes this as a move by restaurants looking to “keep a broad, learning-oriented beverage program, [and] to showcase different grape varieties — people might be nervous or reluctant to spend 22 bucks on something they’ve never had before and don’t know if they’ll like.”

How do we feel about stemless wine glasses?

“If you’re on a boat, maybe,” says Mr. Carney

Between the smudge of fingerprints and the heat transfer from your hand to the wine, these are the least attractive options for most settings. However, jokes aside, Professor Carney makes the point that “these things can be out-reasoned by the context of where you’re drinking it.”

More Scott Carney: Meet ICE's First Master Sommelier

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