A Tribute to Chef James Kent

On Saturday, June 15, the information of chef James Kent’s passing shook the culinary neighborhood. These gathered on the 2024 Meals & Wine Basic in Aspen, turned their consideration to Kent’s household and unbelievable influence on the business during the last 30 years.

Kent’s curiosity about kitchens emerged at 14 years previous when David Bouley moved into his Greenwich Village constructing. In keeping with Culinary Brokers, Kent’s mother inspired him to knock on the enduring chef’s door for a possibility to study from him. In 1993, Kent’s aspiration led to an apprenticeship on the authentic Bouley, ultimately evolving into a proper culinary schooling at Johnson & Wales in Windfall, Rhode Island, in 1997, with a summer season at Le Cordon Bleu in London and Paris in 2001.

Upon graduating culinary college, Kent returned to New York Metropolis, touchdown a tournant place at Babbo shortly after it received the 1999 James Beard Award for Greatest New Restaurant. He went on to work the road at Jean-Georges, the 1998 James Beard Award winner for Greatest New Restaurant, and in 2006, he joined Gordon Ramsay’s group on the London in Midtown as junior sous chef. The restaurant would earn two Michelin stars the next 12 months.

Kent most notably joined Eleven Madison Park in 2007, advancing from line cook dinner to sous chef to chef de delicacies because the landmark restaurant earned three Michelin stars. Within the midst of working in one of many world’s most outstanding kitchens, Kent competed internationally on the 2011 Bocuse d’Or, inserting No. 1 within the U.S. and No. 10 on this planet. 

He was promoted to government chef at sister restaurant The NoMad, the place Kent was nominated for the 2016 James Beard Award for Greatest Chef: New York. In 2018, he opened his first solo enterprise, Crown Shy in downtown Manhattan, as associate and government chef. After two years of success with the idea, Kent opened his tasting menu restaurant, Saga, and cocktail bar, Overstory on the prime of the identical landmark constructing at 70 Pine Road.

Kent’s Saga Restaurant Group contributes to a formidable legacy. Crown Shy has one Michelin star, Saga has two, and Overstory is No. 17 among the many World’s 50 Greatest Bars, and No. 3 in North America. However nothing compares to the 45-year-old husband and father of two’s legacy along with his household, group, and the business neighborhood.

“​​I’ve identified James since his early years at EMP and was all the time so happy with his evolution, expertise, ambition, willpower and accomplishments,” wrote chef Daniel Boulud on Instagram. “His creative creativity, vitality and generosity was an inspiration to his group and to us all.”

The longtime associates collaborated on a cooking demo for Kitchen Rodeo to assist the Impartial Restaurant Coalition (IRC) and ROAR (Eating places Organizing Advocating Rebuilding) in the course of the pandemic. Kent ran the 2021 New York Metropolis Marathon in assist of ROAR and began the Crown Shy Run Membership for his group.

“He was my parter in crime. He modified my life and I’ll be without end grateful,” wrote Saga government pastry chef Renata Ameni on Instagram. “He’d all the time introduce me to individuals as his expensive buddy, by no means as his pastry chef.”

Richard Lee, government chef at two-Michelin-starred Saison in San Francisco, paid tribute to the chef he labored underneath at Eleven Madison Park. “Man did I look as much as the type of chef and individual you have been,” he wrote on Instagram. “You had a confidence that was infectious. You introduced out the most effective in everybody you got here throughout. You have been all the time so glad to see somebody come up! You have been the most effective of us. In an business that’s robust the place you had each alternative to be a tough ass, you discovered a technique to discover a wonderful steadiness of pushing but additionally bringing alongside. You’re the type of chief and man I’ll all the time attempt to be.”

“You’ll keep in my coronary heart as all the time as a tremendous man, nice chef and buddy who has a heat coronary heart,” wrote 2023 F&W Greatest New Chef Eunji Lee of Lysée. “Will keep in mind you and what you’ve dropped at this business without end.”