Service Executive Chef

EXECUTIVE CHEF

Award winning executive chef with comprehensive experience in banquet & a la carte operations for domestic & international hotels & restaurants.

Culinary innovator known for producing top quality, creative cuisine that contributes to revenue growth while simultaneously reducing food & labor costs.

Proven ability to lead successful multi-outlet, fine dining, and high volume operations. Trained at the Culinary Institute of America.

Committed to creating memorable dining experiences for all guests. Thrive in high pressure environments. Deep passion for food & flawless service.

Extensive experience in media exposure – television, radio, magazines, newspapers, photo shoots.

Fine Dining

Budgeting/P&L Management

Multi-Outlet/High-Volume Operations

Safety & Sanitation

Staff Training/Leadership/Supervision

Service & Market Share Expansion

Creative Menu Development & Research

Inventory/Purchasing/Receiving

Team Building

Team Member Satisfaction

Price Structuring & Cost Containment

Guest Relations

EDUCATION: 1984 – 1986 The Culinary Institute of America, Hyde Park, N.Y.

Associates Degree in Culinary Arts

1983 – 1984 Fox Valley Technical Institute, Appleton, WI

Associates Degree in Hotel & Restaurant Management & Cookery

LANGUAGES: Spanish Fluent

Catalan Basic understanding

English Mother tongue

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:

Omni Hotels & Resorts, Dallas, TX

60 Hotels in the United States, Canada, & Mexico that range from exceptional golf and spa retreats to dynamic business settings. A J.D. Power Award winner “Highest in Guest Satisfaction Among Upper Upscale Hotel Chains, Two Years in a Row”. Member of the Global Hotel Alliance.

Task Force Executive Chef, June 2016 – Present

Unique responsibilities for each property & it’s individual circumstances. Anything from an Executive Sous Chef, Banquet Chef, Restaurant Chef, to assisting with preparation in any department – depending on specific needs & circumstances.

Key Contributions:

Ability to “hit the ground running” in almost any facet of the operation.

Great working/practical knowledge of Birch Street Procurement Software as well as the “Recipe” portion of that same software.

Ability to work within each property’s specific culinary guidelines & be able to identify & improve on key areas of operation that are lagging: inventory control, recipe standardization, costing, production efficiency improvement, safety, sanitation, EcoSure compliance, labor/resources control – or anywhere that the F&B directors need me to focus.

Always willing to go the “extra mile”.

Enjoy the challenge of working in different properties & being able to understand & support their operations in as little time as possible.

Hilton Plano Granite Park Hotel, Plano, TX

Full Service 299 room Hotel featuring 5 F&B outlets & 30,000 square feet of Banquet & Catering Space. $6.25 million in gross annual sales. Three-meal-a-day restaurant, Grab & Go, In Room Dining, Bar, Pool.

Executive Chef, June 2014-February 2016

Oversee all culinary, stewarding & purchasing/receiving operations. Lead & manage a 20-member team & manage recruiting, training, scheduling, purchasing, inventory, safety, sanitation, menu research/development, seasonal promotions, price structuring, and food/labor costs. Full P&L responsibility with a budget of $2 million.

Key Contributions:

Successfully opened 299 room, full service hotel in an eight (8) week timeline, completing all objectives on critical path to opening.

Built a winning, mutually respectful environment between the front & back of the house, resulting in improved productivity, customer service, & employee satisfaction.

oUsed any instance as a training opportunity to emphasize guest service, tolerance, and team building.

oCoached front & back of house staff on healthier ways to communally deal with stress & frustration.

oThrough environment building, achieved client satisfaction scores that were consistently 10 to 15 points above the corporate benchmark. Finished the year of 2015 as the second-best property in Satisfaction And Loyalty Scores from our clients in the United States.

Consistently met or remained under budget on all controllable expenses.

oBeat year end labor cost goal by 3% through implementation of labor control software, cross training initiatives & other efficiency enhancing efforts.

oSaved $145K in food costs in the year of 2015 (20.5% food cost on a budget of 24.5%) while simultaneously enhancing product quality.

Recognized by management & hotel ownership for major role in increasing sales in banquets by $1.27 million in one year.

oEngineered & executed banquet menus for maximum profitability while retaining customer’s perceived price/value relationship. Fostered a departmental philosophy of flexibility & “not saying no” - anticipating client’s wishes, going above & beyond, & making it right.

oImplemented purchasing, production & usage logs to pinpoint projected food expenditures needed for banquet & catering events.

oEfforts resulted in significant increase in repeat business and positive word-of-mouth publicity, ending the fiscal year with a 75% increase in banquet & catering sales over projections.

Launched profitable Tuesday & Thursday Lunch Buffets in restaurant to more effectively compete in growing marketplace.

Expanded establishment’s visibility, generated community goodwill, and heightened staff awareness by seeking out volunteer opportunities supporting worthy causes, including shelters, American Heart Association, & Hope’s Door of Collin Country.

Hilton Anatole Hotel, Main Kitchen, Dallas, TX

Full service, 1606 room convention hotel. 11 restaurants & bars plus 341,000 square feet of meeting & exhibit space. $70 million dollars in F&B annual gross revenues.

Executive Sous Chef, May 2012 to June, 2014

Oversee all culinary, stewarding & purchasing/receiving operations for all of the F&B outlets in the hotel – including In Room Dining & the employee cafeteria. Lead & manage a 50-member team. Oversee recruiting, training, scheduling, purchasing, inventory, safety, sanitation, menu research/development, seasonal promotions & special events, price structuring, and food/labor costs.

Key Contributions:

Improved the quality of the food served in all outlets, through better organization & concise written recipes was able to have the managers & supervisors focus on training, retraining, inventory & quality control/line checks.

Improved profitability & employee satisfaction.

oImplemented structure, organization & discipline in the Media Restaurant kitchen, which provided increased customer satisfaction through improved quality & consistency of product – as well as reducing instances of long waits for food. This structuring allowed the restaurant to do upwards of 500 covers per service easily – improving our bottom line.

oCreated, implemented, & executed inventory/ordering system for Media Restaurant kitchen – which ensured that the correct quantity of product was on hand at the correct time in order to serve the forecasted amount of clients. This also positively impacted our food cost & avoided over ordering/guessing.

oIntroduced concise recipe booklets & production quantity schedules which immediately improved the quality & consistency of the food served. This had a direct positive impact on customer & employee satisfaction – in both the front of the house & the back of the house. Production quantities schedules insured that the culinary team would have the adequate amount of product on hand & that that there would not be overproduction/waste. Both of these measures had an almost immediate positive impact on our profitability.

Expanded establishment’s visibility with local client base. Conceptualized & created local beer dinners, wine dinners & whiskey dinners.

Hilton Anatole Hotel, Nana Restaurant, Dallas, TX

Dallas Morning News 5 Star 180 seat fine dining restaurant, 80 seat bar capacity, 220-person banquet facility – all on the 27th floor.

Executive Chef, January 2005 to April 2012

Oversee all culinary, stewarding & purchasing/receiving operations for all of the restaurant, bar & banquet rooms located on the 27th floor. Complete freedom in creating daily & seasonally changing menus. Extensive work with local charities, local & national media, & P.R. companies to promote the image of the restaurant & the entire hotel.

Key Contributions:

Improved food cost & profitability by 10% in the first year.

Improved labor cost by 8% in the first year.

Expanded visibility of establishment with local & national client bases via extensive media & P.R. work.

oJames Beard Dinner in NYC in April of 2007.

oStarChefs Rising Star Chef, Dallas – 2007.

oFood Arts Magazine, June 2007

oStarChefs International Chef’s Congress Gala Dinner Chef, The Morgan Library, NYC, September 2007.

oStarChefs International Chef Congress Chef Presenter, September 2008 – “The Art of Presentation”.

oLes Dames de Escoffier Dinner, November 2006

oDallas Cowboy’s Tailgate Party, April 2008, 2009, 2010 & 2011

oTexas Hill Country Wine & Food Festival – Fall Creek Vineyards, April 2008

o“Zoo to Do” fund raiser for the Dallas Zoo, September 2008

oMarch of Dimes Signature Chef, November 2008, 2009, 2010 & 2011

oCelebrity Chef Dallas Cowboys Stadium, December 2011

oShare Our Strength Dinner “No Kid Hungry” Stephen Pyle’s Restaurant, October 2011

Hotel Arts, a Ritz Carlton property, Barcelona, Spain, 5 Star Grand Luxe

Chef de Cuisine of 2 restaurants, November 2003 to December 2004

1.) Enoteca Bombaci: Gastronomic modern Iberian emphasizing marriages with the 500 bottle wine cellar.

2.) “BITES”: Upscale fast-food featuring personal interpretations of classical international hotel favourites – a 3 meal a day outlet.

Oversee all culinary, stewarding & purchasing/receiving operations for both restaurants. Complete freedom in creating daily & seasonally changing menus.

Key Contributions:

Successfully opened two (2) new Food & Beverage concepts that operated from a single kitchen.

Created all training materials, recipe booklets, photos & costings for both restaurants.

Maximized labor & food cost savings through menu engineering & double usage of products in both restaurants.

Laid the foundation for the Enoteca Bombaci to receive 1, & then 2, Michelin Stars after my departure.

Worked hands on with a small culinary staff & maximized efficiency, quality, & profitability.

Hotel Arts, a Ritz Carlton property, Barcelona, Spain, 5 Star Grand Luxe

Chef de Cuisine, Newport Room, February 1995 to November 2003

Oversee all culinary, stewarding & purchasing/receiving operations for the restaurant. Complete freedom in creating daily & seasonally changing menus. Received several Michelin inspections towards the end of my tenure.

Key Contributions:

Daily hands on/side by side with culinary & stewarding staff to improve quality & consistency of food served & overall guest experience.

Implementation & on-going training: development & use of standardized recipes, plate diagrams, photographs, costings, mise en place lists, new menu roll-outs, inventory systems, inventory control, cleaning schedules, sanitation, safety practices, scheduling, etc. – basically laying the foundation of systems that allow a kitchen to function safely, organized, & function profitably.

Really understood, witnessed & embraced how team members’ contributions can improve a single property & a multi-property organization – and how that improves the product, the process, & the people (and, ultimately, client satisfaction).

Several cooks have moved on to become chefs in their own right - in restaurants, hotels, & culinary colleges in Spain & abroad.

The Ritz Carlton, San Francisco, California

Sous Chef, The Dining Room, January 1994 to February 1995

Oversee all culinary organization, training, safety, sanitation, scheduling, purchasing/receiving operations for the Dining Room restaurant that, at that time, was under the stewardship of Chef Gary Danko. Ensure proper menu item execution through station/line checks, tastings, station training & re-training. Guide the team in transitioning into the seasonally changing menus (4 menu changes annually). Plan & execute all off-premise events (dinners, dine-arounds, charity events). Plan & execute all Holiday menus. Maintain & improve upon quality levels in one of San Francisco’s premier fine dining destinations. Work hand in hand with the front of the house team to ensure a flawless service experience on a daily basis. Set up & work the meat station during service.

Key Contributions:

Build relationships first & then work on process & product improvements.

Drive culinary team to be better, more efficient & constantly product driven without taking the fun out of the work environment.

Inspect & assess each phase of the processes in place to improve upon them individually & collectively. In this case, the process improvement goal was always quality improvement.

Drive quality based product on every plate for every client – using the 3P approach: People, Process, Product.

“Own” & manage off-site meat aging program (mostly for lamb).

Foster a positive relationship of mutual respect with the front of the house to ensure that the entire restaurant team is exceeding client’s expectations during every service.

OF SPECIAL MENTION:

February of 1995, worked with the chef of Alain

Ducasse (Sylvan Portay) when he started at the

Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco.

One month stagiare with Martin Berasategui in his

restaurant in LaSarte in Pais Vasco, Spain during

August of 1997. 3 Star Michelin.

Realized various classes with Ferran & Albert

Adria of “El Bulli”. 3 Star Michelin.

Cooked dinner with Joan Roca of “El Cellar de

Can Roca” in June of 2002. 3 Star Michelin.

Cooked dinner with Paul Bocuse in 2001. 2 Star

Michelin.

Realized various classes specializing in the

confection of artisan ice creams in Chocovic -

Gurb, Spain. Michael Angelo Corvitto.

StarChefs Rising Star Chef, Dallas. 2007

StarChefs I.C.C. Conference Class Demonstrator on

the topic of presentation, New York City. 2008

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