This past April, he found a way to do both outside the daily grind of a restaurant kitchen. Metz was hired as culinary director of Resident, what he calls a “hospitality adjacent” company that organizes private dinners and events in underutilized, fully equipped spaces in luxury apartment buildings in New York City. Some of the dinners are ticketed and open to the public via Tock, while most are corporate events or private parties.
“The private events keep the lights on, while the ticketed dinners are our passion project,”
said Metz.
Like Metz, experienced chefs are stepping away from traditional restaurants in search of better work-life balance. We hear about the celebrity chefs who have opted out of the restaurant pressure cooker to start specialty food businesses, host TV shows, lead culinary tours around the world and run media companies. But far less famous chefs are finding work as consultants, designing menus and training cooks for soon-to-open restaurants. Others are becoming high-end private chefs or are hired by food companies to develop recipes and concepts, while some are moving into noncommercial foodservice to head up corporate or college dining or health care and senior-living operations.
Culinary director Dave Metz oversees 80 chefs who work as independent contractors for Resident. | Photo courtesy of Resident.
There have always been other avenues open to professional chefs, but since the pandemic, it seems that more restaurant chefs are looking for ways to break out of a restaurant’s four walls in search of a better lifestyle. And the pandemic may have opened up more opportunities to make that happen that are rewarding both financially and professionally.
Working the gig
Resident is one such model. It got its start in 2018 by Brian Mommsen, an entrepreneur with private-equity experience who acquired the software to streamline private dining reservations. He started by doing supper club pop-ups in lofts and private homes, but since the pandemic, he secured venture capital and developed strong relationships with real estate partners who want to offer dinners as an amenity in their buildings’ common rooms and lounges.
White Asparagus with cashew ajo blanco and wood ear mushrooms was one of the courses at a "Nikkei Twist" dinner. | Photo by Pat Cobe.
Currently, Resident holds 15-20 ticketed dinners and 40-70 private events per month at 11 venues around New York City and has its sights set on Chicago.
Metz, who is a salaried employee, oversees 80 chefs as independent contractors, 40 of whom regularly work events while others prefer a gig now and then. “The chefs can choose the event and select the days he or she wants to work, so the flexibility draws many skilled professionals,” he said.
Pay is $550 for a small dinner and goes up from there. “The chefs are compensated on a scale commensurate with the size and scope of the event, and if a client asks for a celebrity chef, we can bring one in,” said Metz. “But most often, we are using sous chefs who are trying to make a name for themselves.” Several come from such elite restaurants as Eleven Madison Park, Gramercy Tavern and Per Se.
One of the dinners in Resident's Asian American + Pacific Islander Heritage Series, Nikkei Twist started with Hiramisa Tiradito. | Photo courtesy of Resident.
Although the chefs maintain creative autonomy to design and execute the menu, Metz helps them talk through their vision and curate the menu to a degree to make sure the dishes are executable and appealing to guests. “I know how the kitchens are equipped, and what a guest will find appealing,” he said. “The chefs get a food budget a week ahead and the menus come to me in advance so I can approve the verbiage.”
For each dinner, Metz hires a front-of-house lead, sommelier and service staff. He gets to cook at events that “have more eyes on them,” he said, citing a recent big corporate dinner for Whirlpool.
Chef Will Ono orchestrated the menu for the Nikkei Twist. He previously worked in restaurants for 18 years. | Photo courtesy of Resident.
A major part of his job is recruiting talent. But there seems to be no shortage of chefs looking for gigs. “There’s a recruiting link on the Resident website and we market through social media,” said Metz. “But friends of friends and word of mouth are top recruiting tools.” Interested chefs are interviewed and asked to prepare a canape and two courses, then share the story behind the dishes.
Resident's dinners are set up restaurant-style in underutilized spaces in luxury condo buildings and lofts. | Photo courtesy of Resident.
“Guests want to hear the story behind the food, so the chefs also have to be good presenters,” he added. At the dinners, they have a chance to interact with diners and market themselves, which can lead to other opportunities.
Making a professional pivot
After graduating from the Culinary Institute of America, Chef Josh Thomsen started building a five-star resume that includes positions at America’s top restaurants and hotels, such as French Laundry, Joachim Splichal’s Pinot Bistro, Michael Mina’s Nobhill, Tao, The Little Nell in Aspen and Hotel Bel-Air. “I’m the poster child for never burning a bridge,” he said.
But this professional whirlwind wreaked havoc on his personal life, Thomsen said. He had married and was raising two sons, but was away from his family a lot. “I had to figure out a way to slow down,” he added.
That way turned out to be a job as senior executive chef for Morrison Healthcare in Greenville, South Carolina, where his family had moved to be closer to his wife’s parents.
Chef Josh Thomsen transitioned into healthcare dining from high-end restaurants including The French Laundry. | Photo courtesy of Morrison Healthcare.
“During the pandemic, I got to be home and it was fantastic to be around my family,” said Thomsen. “Eventually, I started getting calls from restaurants to help them rebound after Covid and I was able to be home more but missed the culture of the restaurant kitchen and wanted to get back in.” That said, he didn’t want to helm a stove until 9 or 10 p.m.
So, Thomsen answered an ad for Morrison Healthcare, having no idea what he was getting into except that “healthcare food has a bad rap,” he said. He had multiple conversations with Joshua Radosevich, a Morrison vice president, and visited Prisma Health Greenville Memorial Hospital, the facility where he would be heading up the kitchen.
“It’s huge,” said Thomsen, who now oversees three meals a day for 800 patients, a food court with multiple concepts that feed 500 patrons, the doctors’ dining room, catered events and more. “It’s a front-loaded lifestyle. I may be on my way to work at 6 a.m. for breakfast caterings, but I’m home to have dinner with my kids [now 8 and 10] and I’m off Sundays and Mondays.” Five sous chefs and a number of cooks, nutritionists and other employees make up his team.
Maple Roasted Pork Loin, Caramelized Brussel Sprouts and Sweet Potatoes with Apple Mustard Sauce is one of the dishes Thomsen introduced to hospital patients. | Photo courtesy of Morrison Healthcare.
Thomsen’s goal is to be a “culinary disruptor” by cooking restaurant food in a hospital setting. “For the patients, there are very specific guidelines,” he said. “There’s no foie gras, truffles or ahi tuna, so I have to think about food in a different way.”
And he is pushing the boundaries. Without access to all the vendors he had as a restaurant chef, Thomsen goes to the Asian market for spices and a local Indian restaurant for garam masala. He set up the hospital food court like a food truck marketplace, changing up the concepts frequently. There’s been a smokehouse, taco shop, ramen shop and Zen concept, where everything is served from woks and customers get a fortune cookie as a favor.
A little over a year since being hired, Thomsen said, “I’ve been allowed to blossom, be creative and prosper. In the end, it’s all about nurturing people through food.”
Chef Thomsen sketches the composition of a Roasted Baby Beet & Carrot Salad with Goat Cheese, Candied Walnuts & Chives for his team to follow. | Photo courtesy of Morrison Healthcare.
Chef of all trades
After years working in restaurants in both the front- and back-of-house, hosting thousands of cooking events at Google and other tech companies, and competing successfully on Top Chef and Chopped, Dave Martin has reinvented himself as a food creator on social media. In between, he juggles jobs as a private chef, party and event caterer, restaurant consultant and recipe developer.
Pre-Covid, consulting comprised about 70% of Chef Martin’s workload, where he developed menus and readied restaurants for openings; events and catering took up the remaining 30%. But restaurant consulting dried up during and after the pandemic, he said, as people mainly rebooted what they had. Now that side of the business amounts to about 30%.
While catering and private cheffing still keeps him busy, “I realized I needed a more diversified platform, and a friend who’s an agent for chefs suggested I become a food creator on social media,” said Martin. He learned filming, lighting and how to produce compelling content, launching three pieces of content a day, mainly on Instagram.
Dave Martin as chef-creator
That has led to paid campaign work from food companies who come to him to create content, and this newest endeavor is starting to take off. “Since I’m a chef, I know what I’m doing and have an edge over many of the influencers, but I’m trying to figure out how to generate more income,” he said. “Creators have to constantly evolve and grow and the algorithms keep changing.”
Another rude awakening: Work-life balance is not always achievable when you’re an entrepreneur wearing many hats. “Over the holidays, events ramped up and I was overwhelmed,” he said.
Martin warns chefs that it’s not that easy stepping from a restaurant kitchen into a private client’s kitchen. “It’s a different dynamic and you can’t just roll over from one world into another,” he said. “Some clients have very precise needs and long hours, and it can possibly be more demanding to be a private chef.”
Martin admits he’s an overachiever and can’t leave that persona behind just by changing out one kitchen for another. But it’s rewarding to know there are more kitchens out there, and chefs now have more ways to work.