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Best Chef and Culinary Rising Star
Where is he now? Christopher Lee, winner of the 15th Annual James Beard Foundation 2005 Gallo of Sonoma Rising Star Chef of the Year and one of Food & Wine’s Best New Chefs for 2006 is finally back home on Madison Avenue.
Debuting in October 2006 as executive chef of Gilt, the NYC Palace Hotel’s new culinary masterpiece, Chef Lee hopes that his modern American menu will “honor the history of the Palace’s famed Villard Mansion,” while embracing “the energy of Manhattan as it exists today.”
The Early Years
Chef Lee initially pursued a mainstream educational degree, his mother’s dream, before following his own long-time passion—a culinary degree. This thirty-something chef has admitted to dreaming about ‘best chef’ status since his teen years, working at a local bakery. In college, he honed his culinary skills by catering fraternity parties and parent days before he began his culinary school sojourn in San Francisco.
Chef Lee Heads Home
Born in Queens and raised on Long Island, the culinary school graduate headed back to the East Coast to work in noted Manhattan restaurants—Daniel, Jean Georges, Oceana, and The Fifth Floor—before accepting the position of chef de cuisine at the Striped Bass, a Philly seafood restaurant owned by noted restaurateur Stephen Starr.
Advice to Future Best Chefs
Chef Lee, who acknowledges that his favorite kitchen tool is a spoon—bigger than a teaspoon but not too big—and compares it to a painter’s favorite paint brush, has the following culinary tidbits for aspiring young chefs—keep your knives sharp, keep your sense of humor, and “don’t take short cuts—it will come back to haunt you. And eat! Keep eating.”
Sources
Food and Wine
Gilt
Striped Bass
About the Author
Judi Sandall is a technical writer and a regular Chef School Review columnist. She is a graduate of the State University of New York, with a BA in English Literature.
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