I’ve spent over 40 years in professional kitchens, cooking for some of the most demanding clientele in the world — and I’ve learned that the tool in your hand matters as much as the recipe in front of you.
I trained at the École Hôtelière de Murbach in Alsace, France, and was named Best Apprentice Chef in the Haut-Rhin region before I’d even finished school. From there, I spent two years working at the American Embassy in Paris, France — a job that taught me more about precision and consistency than almost anything since. During that time, I had the honor of cooking for then-President Jimmy Carter and many luminaries. I’ve written about the day that pressure nearly got the better of me elsewhere on this site.
From Paris, I went on to spend two years in London at Le Gavroche, the three-Michelin-starred restaurant run by Albert Roux — one of the defining experiences of my career. If the Embassy taught me consistency, Le Gavroche taught me rigor: the kind of precise, disciplined work that separates a good kitchen from a great one.
The decades that followed took me through kitchens in Los Angeles, Antigua, and Barcelona, before I co-founded Kokkari in San Francisco and Evvia in Palo Alto — two restaurants that became local institutions and Gourmet magazine favorites. Later, I spent more than 15 years in China. I moved to Shanghai to run Shikumen Bistro, where our wine program was ranked among the top three in the city by Wine Spectator, and eventually to Macau, where I co-founded a culinary consultancy and helped build a culinary sciences degree program at Macau University of Science and Technology, training over 200 students in the F&B program.
For the past five years, I’ve served as Executive Chef in a private club in the Bay Area, cooking daily for a membership that includes some of the wealthiest and smartest people in the country.
This site is what I know now, boiled down to what actually matters: which tools earn a permanent place in a kitchen, and which ones are noise. Nothing recommended here is because it’s trendy. It’s because I’d use it myself.
Get in Touch
Questions, feedback, or just want to talk knives and cookware? Reach me at jean@theseasonedbench.com.
