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The latest chefs on the move-2012-01-10The latest chefs on the move-2012-01-10

Marc Forgione, Jonathan Waxman, Tyler Williams, Lulzim Rexhepi, Gary O’Hanlon, Tom Buckner, David Man

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

January 10, 2012

2 Min Read
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Bret Thorn

Marc Forgione, chef-owner of New York restaurant Marc Forgione and one of the stars of Iron Chef America, plans to open American Cut steakhouse at Revel, a beachfront hotel slated to open in Atlantic City, N.J., this spring.

Forgione’s first executive position also was at a steakhouse, BLT Prime in New York.

Jonathan Waxman has joined 12-unit Rosa Mexicano as a “chef-in-residence” and will orchestrate the New York-based chain’s 2012 Flavors of Mexico series of four seasonal menus.

Waxman, the chef and owner of Barbuto in New York and former Top Chef Masters contestant, will develop an “Eclectic Cuts” menu for February and March, a Mexican Passover menu for April, a June menu highlighting the cuisine of Baja, and a Day of the Dead menu in October and November

Tyler Williams, former sous chef at Bacchanalia, the flagship of Atlanta restaurateurs Anne Quatrano and Clifford Harrison, has been named executive chef at their chophouse, Abattoir.

Williams, originally from Okemos, Mich., attended the Western Culinary Institute in Portland, Ore. He has been at Bacchanalia since 2010.

Lulzim Rexhepi, the former chef of Kittichai, a fine-dining Thai restaurant in New York, and before that the chef of Xing, an upscale pan-Asian restaurant, also in New York, was appointed executive chef of SeaSalt in Cape May, N.J. He will prepare such dishes as bouillabaisse with melted fennel and leek salad, and scallop and shrimp skewers with yellow rice and ratatouille.

Gary O’Hanlon is the new executive pastry chef of the Willard InterContinental Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Most recently, O’Hanlon was executive pastry chef at the Pierre Hotel in New York, and before that he was pastry chef at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in New Orleans.

The native of Dublin, Ireland, will be serving honeycomb ice cream and chocolate crème brûlée with caramel.

Tom Buckner was named executive chef of B. Pinelli’s Simply Italian in East Providence, R.I.

The former executive chef of Pawtucket Country Club in Pawtucket, R.I., said he’s returning to his Italian roots with the move.

“We will be presenting simple but elegantly prepared dishes cooked to order with no shortcuts from the best ingredients,” he said.

David Man has returned to Island Hotel in Newport Beach, Calif., as executive chef. Previously, the hotel’s executive sous chef and then chef de cuisine, Man most recently worked as chef de cuisine at the Hyatt Regency in Huntington Beach, Calif., and at the Diamond Club and Knothole restaurants at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, Calif.

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected].
Follow him on Twitter: @foodwriterdiary

About the Author

Bret Thorn

Senior Food Editor, Nation's Restaurant News

Senior Food & Beverage Editor

Bret Thorn is senior food & beverage editor for Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality for Informa’s Restaurants and Food Group, with responsibility for spotting and reporting on food and beverage trends across the country for both publications as well as guiding overall F&B coverage. 

He is the host of a podcast, In the Kitchen with Bret Thorn, which features interviews with chefs, food & beverage authorities and other experts in foodservice operations.

From 2005 to 2008 he also wrote the Kitchen Dish column for The New York Sun, covering restaurant openings and chefs’ career moves in New York City.

He joined Nation’s Restaurant News in 1999 after spending about five years in Thailand, where he wrote articles about business, banking and finance as well as restaurant reviews and food columns for Manager magazine and Asia Times newspaper. He joined Restaurant Hospitality’s staff in 2016 while retaining his position at NRN. 

A magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University in Medford, Mass., with a bachelor’s degree in history, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Thorn also studied traditional French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine in Paris. He spent his junior year of college in China, studying Chinese language, history and culture for a semester each at Nanjing University and Beijing University. While in Beijing, he also worked for ABC News during the protests and ultimate crackdown in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Thorn’s monthly column in Nation’s Restaurant News won the 2006 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for best staff-written editorial or opinion column.

He served as president of the International Foodservice Editorial Council, or IFEC, in 2005.

Thorn wrote the entry on comfort food in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, 2nd edition, published in 2012. He also wrote a history of plated desserts for the Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, published in 2015.

He was inducted into the Disciples d’Escoffier in 2014.

A Colorado native originally from Denver, Thorn lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Bret Thorn’s areas of expertise include food and beverage trends in restaurants, French cuisine, the cuisines of Asia in general and Thailand in particular, restaurant operations and service trends. 

Bret Thorn’s Experience: 

Nation’s Restaurant News, food & beverage editor, 1999-Present
New York Sun, columnist, 2005-2008 
Asia Times, sub editor, 1995-1997
Manager magazine, senior editor and restaurant critic, 1992-1997
ABC News, runner, May-July, 1989

Education:
Tufts University, BA in history, 1990
Peking University, studied Chinese language, spring, 1989
Nanjing University, studied Chinese language and culture, fall, 1988 
Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine, Cértificat Elémentaire, 1986

Email: [email protected]

Social Media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bret-thorn-468b663/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bret.thorn.52
Twitter: @foodwriterdiary
Instagram: @foodwriterdiary

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