Our middle son's mentor

[Dave Grubb]

Our middle son graduated from the Culinary Institute of America and began his career in NYC. After working at multiple noteworthy but poorly run restaurants he took a position with Jean-Georges Vongerichten in mid-town Manhattan.

Jean-George was not afflicted with the same vices of the nose his previous employers seemed to share and his stability was obvious. Our son, John, worked under Jean-Georges for about 3 years when he was asked to go to Chicago and open a new restaurant---so with no experience in that part of the business--off he went.

John spent 2 years in Chicago growing a new venture into life when he was asked to go to Hong Kong and "fix" a broken restaurant in the Mandarin Hotel. Finishing that project in two years, he was asked to move once again to Shanghai, China to an entirely new stand alone French themed restaurant. After two years, and open for about 4 months, that restaurant was rated by Zagat as the top French restaurant in China.

Much to our great joy, John came home for the first time in years (we had visited him multiple times) and announced he had told Jean-Georges, that in 4 months he wanted to leave--which he did.

It was a tremendous opportunity for John but he was ready to move on.

The linked article is, at least to me, a very interesting short biography of Jean-Georges, some may find it an interesting read as well. Jean-Georges is one of the top rated chiefs in the world. I see Jean-Georges on occasion in his flagship restaurant in NYC while entertaining clients.

To our great joy, John lives about 20 miles from us and is working in Philadelphia, NYC, VA and Pittsburgh.

I should add that tomorrow night we are invited to John's house for dinner, Daube (a French beef stew). He doesn't cook any longer, in his current position, and so often treats us to true gastronomic adventures on weekends.