Jonathan Benno

Providing a future for my family is also significant, my life changed ten years ago after I got married. My wife and my two children are the most important people in my life.

After graduation, I moved to Hawaii and worked there as a cook for a few years. There I realized that I needed to properly go to school to build a foundation and focus on my career.

John Farnsworth was the first chef that I worked for that I would call a “chef’s chef”. He is an incredible teacher; he encouraged me to get out in the world, travel, and learn as much as possible.

You have to keep studying, learning, looking for a new or better way to do things. Constantly push yourself to learn.

when hiring, what I look for the most is attitude, humility, and the desire to learn. Aspiring professionals also need to understand and accept that there is a lot of hard work that goes into working in this industry. It will require patience, discipline, and the willingness to make sacrifices.

I was fortunate enough to visit Japan a couple of years ago. It was a very significant trip that I still think about sometimes. The culture of respect and pride that the Japanese people have for their work, towards one another, for the ingredients, it was all deeply inspiring. As a New Yorker, I also feel lucky to be surrounded by an incredible food culture.

You have to come up with creative ways to educate and challenge your team. For example, putting up a great family meal or coming up with ideas for new dishes and trying them out together. After doing this for 30 years, I know that we can learn something from every member of the team and that we need to let the staff have a voice. There’s always going to be someone who looks at something differently and shows you how to do something better.