Sponsored By

The latest chefs on the move-2013-06-27The latest chefs on the move-2013-06-27

NRN senior food editor Bret Thorn tracks the latest chefs on the move

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

June 27, 2013

6 Min Read
Nation's Restaurant News logo in a gray background | Nation's Restaurant News
Yuhi Fujinaga

has been named vice president of culinary menu strategy at Applebee’s. He reports to Becky Johnson, senior vice president for marketing and culinary. Most recently, Czizek was vice president of food and beverage research and development for Dave and Buster’s. Previously, he was culinary and beverage director of Romano’s Macaroni Grill and executive chef of Mel Hollen Restaurant Concepts, both in Dallas.

Nicole Plue is the founding director of pastry arts at the San Francisco Cooking School, where she will teach the professional pastry certification program. Plue won the 2010 James Beard Foundation Award for outstanding pastry chef when she was at Redd in Yountville, Calif.

RELATED
The latest chefs on the move - 5/22/13
The latest chefs on the move - 4/22/13
More chefs at NRN.com

Yuhi Fujinaga is the new executive chef of The Sea Grill in New York City. Most recently chef de cuisine of Bar Basque, also in New York City, Fujinaga, who was born in Japan and raised in Hawaii, is making dishes such as yellow fin tuna à la Niçoise; plancha-grilled opakapaka with creamy lobster emulsion and purée of edamame, English pea and rosemary; and almond-crusted rainbow trout with shallot beurre blanc, trout caviar and sorrel.

Myles McVay

, former executive chef of B&O American Brasserie in Baltimore, has moved to Portland, Ore., where he is executive chef of Three Degrees. The New Orleans native is cooking dishes such as ginger barbecue shrimp with lemon grass and Worcestershire sauce; hamachi with citrus-soy, bird chile, crispy ginger and green onion; and lamb riblets with cumin, chile caramel and asparagus.

Keoko Turner is the new chef at Bantam Biddy, Shaun Doty’s fast-casual “better chicken” concept in Atlanta. The Culinary Institute of America graduate most recently was sous chef of Bistro Niko in Atlanta.

Jenna Crile

is the new executive chef of Toast in Birmingham, Mich., where this summer he’s cooking hake with tomatillo sweet potato hash and a daily changing dish of mushrooms on toast, among other things. For the past five years he was executive chef of D’Amato’s in Royal Oak, Mich.

Jenna Crile is the new pastry chef of Sprout and Frog N Snail, both located in Chicago. Most recently a pastry assistant at Baume & Brix, also in Chicago, Crile is making an avocado bombe with cherry purée, radishes, freeze-dried sweet corn and black sesame at Sprout. At Frog N Snail her current favorite is a chocolate cake with peanut butter marshmallow fluff, spiced peanuts, chocolate-and-pretzel crème anglaise, pretzels and chocolate ice cream.

Lou Cruz

Lou Cruz is the new executive chef of 10 Prime Steak & Sushi in Providence, R.I., where he is making dishes such as Samurai’s Grilled Sushi Sandwich with tuna, salmon, lobster, kabayaki sauce and togarashi; and the Crunchy Munchie Sushi Roll, with fried coconut shrimp, tempura crab and honey truffle aïoli. Most recently, Cruz was chef de cuisine of CAV, also in Providence.

John Lawrence, Antonio Cardoso, more

(Continued from page 1)

Antonio Cardoso

is the new chef de cuisine of Kimball’s Kitchen at the Sanderling Resort in Duck, N.C. Most recently chef de cuisine of Tides Inn in Chesapeake, Va., Lawrence is cooking items such as smoked trout fritters with paprika aïoli and crispy pork belly steamed buns with chow chow and Sriracha barbecue sauce.

Antonio Cardoso is the new executive chef of the Conrad New York in New York City, overseeing daily operations of the hotel’s signature restaurant, Atrio, its rooftop bar Loopy Doopy and all in-room dining. He also is managing the rooftop garden. Cardoso most recently was executive chef of The Ritz-Carlton Abaco Club at Winding Bay in the Abaco Islands, Bahamas.

Daniel Furey

is the new executive chef of Cannery Row Brewing Company in Monterey, Calif. Most recently the executive chef of R2L in Philadelphia, Furey is now making beer-friendly dishes such as crab cake with Southeast Asian aromatics and Korean chile-spiked tartar sauce, and a wood-grilled, marinated Portobello mushroom burger with herbed goat cheese, tempura tomato, and an arugula and pickled red onion salad on a brioche bun.

Dario Correa is the new executive chef at The Mayfair Hotel & Spa in Coconut Grove, Fla., overseeing all culinary functions, including the Italian restaurant Spartico and the Above the Mayfair rooftop. Originally from Buenos Aires, Correa most recently was executive chef of the Grand Beach Hotel in Miami Beach, Fla.

Stacy Cogswell

is the new chef at The Regal Beagle in Brookline, Mass. A graduate of Johnson & Wales University in Providence, R.I., Cogswell has traveled to Singapore and the Caribbean, as well as the Eastern Seaboard, but her work experience has been mostly in the Boston area, where she was a sous chef at Market in Boston and chef de cuisine at Upstairs on the Square in Cambridge, Mass.

J. Christopher Windus, former executive chef of Todd English’s Bluezoo at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Hotel in Winter Park, Fla., has been named executive chef of Hamilton’s Kitchen at The Alfond Inn, also in Winter Park. Windus studied hospitality management at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., and earned an associate degree in culinary arts from the Capital Culinary Institute in Tallahassee, Fla.

J. Christopher Windus

is the new executive chef of Seminole Casino Immokalee in Immokalee, Fla. Originally from Paris, Boukhalfa has put down roots in Florida, where he most recently was executive chef of the Fort Lauderdale Marriott North.

Jesse Olsen has returned to his home state of Washington, where he is the new executive chef at The Golf Club at Newcastle in Newcastle, Wash., including the property’s Calcutta Grill. Most recently he was executive chef at the Four Seasons Alexandria at San Stefano, in Egypt.

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

Subscribe Nation's Restaurant News Newsletters
Get the latest breaking news in the industry, analysis, research, recipes, consumer trends, the latest products and more.