New York City’s gorgeous Central Park sits serenely downtown amid the bustling city life that speeds around it. Home to Broadway, the Statue of Liberty, Rockefeller Center, the New York Stock Exchange, The Today Show, and much more, NYC can also take credit for helping start the successful careers of a vast number of famous chefs from all over the globe.
New York City is famous for countless reasons, like being the symbol of freedom from oppression, hosting the idealistic American dream, and providing opportunities for new and improved lives. It’s the place where 12 million immigrants arrived at Ellis Island and started over from scratch. Many of these new citizens began careers in food. Although the origins of the term Big Apple are unrelated to food, it perfectly fits today’s New York City personality.
Danny Meyer
Danny Meyer is the CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group. This company owns and operates several world-famous restaurants, including Shake Shack, Gramercy Tavern, The Modern, Blue Smoke, and Jazz Standard. Little did he know that opening his very first restaurant, Union Square Cafe, back in 1985 at age 27 would spark such a spreading wildfire of popularity, success, and expansion. Meyer unknowingly started the Union Square Hospitality Group by discovering his passion and following his dreams, one small step and one venue at a time.
Daniel Boulud
Also beginning his career in New York City in the 1980s, Daniel Boulud started with one restaurant approximately three decades ago and is now the current owner of seven amazingly successful venues throughout Manhattan. Boulud’s elite list of restaurants includes Daniel, a Michelin two-star fine dining venue, Michelin one-star Cafe Boulud, DBGB Kitchen and Bar on the Lower East Side, the upscale but more casual restaurant, DB Bistro Moderne, and more.
Masaharu Morimoto
If you do not recognize his world-famous restaurants, Nobu or Morimoto on 10th Avenue, you must be familiar with the popular reality television series Iron Chef. In addition to his onslaught of success in the food and restaurant industry, Japanese chef Masaharu Morimoto is also the first Iron Chef.
Whether you are a chef, baker, or server, work with food in another capacity, or if you just simply love food, cooking, or restaurants in general, there are tons of available information and helpful tips you can consult. One resource, iExplore, features more details on the chefs mentioned above as well as information on a variety of other famous restaurants and their founders – individuals who, by creating them, started building their wildly successful careers in the heart of New York.