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Chefs on the Move: Alain Allegretti joins Fig & Olive and Eggslut’s founder is at Umami Burger

Plus a new culinary leader at Le Cirque in Las Vegas and at hotels and restaurants across the country

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

November 9, 2021

23 Slides
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Alain Allegretti, who came to New York City at the turn of the century to work at Le Cirque and has mostly worked in fine dining ever since, is now heading up the six Fig & Olive restaurants. Alvin Cailan also cut his teeth working in fine dining before launching Eggslut, which started as a food truck in Los Angeles, and now he’s the new face of Umami Burger.

Le Cirque’s Las Vegas location recently reopened, and it’s now being headed up by Dameon Evers.

Cookbook author Jenny McCoy has been named pastry chef and managing partner of Buck Russell’s Bakery & Sandwich Shop, which is slated to open in Wilmette, Ill., this winter.

There’s been a lot of activity in the kitchens of Nashville hotels lately, where Kelsi Armijo is the new executive chef of the Hermitage Hotel, Diego Fernandez is executive chef of Noelle Nashville, Sean Foley is now running the kitchen at The Union Station Nashville Yards and Thomas Tuggle is executive chef of The Harpeth Hotel.

In New York City Brian Fowler has been promoted to executive chef of Black Barn, Antonio Salvatore is leading the kitchens at Atlantic Grill and Casa Limone and Waldorf-Astoria veteran Peter Betz is now director of culinary at the New York Hilton Midtown.

In Southern California, Mike Minor is now running the kitchen at the La Jolla Beach & Tennis Club, Sean Michael Runyon is the new chef of 1 Pico at Shutters on the Beach in Santa Monica and Nelson Sanchez is executive sous chef of the Marriott Irvine Spectrum.

Farther north, Marcello Salinas is the new executive chef of the Hilton San Francisco Union Square and Brendalee Vialpondo is the new executive chef of Timber Coves Resort in Jenner, Calif. Still farther north, Cory Rom is the tasting room & restaurant chef for Willamette Valley Vineyards.

Elsewhere, Kenneth Arneson is at the Adero Scottsdale, Alexander Robinson is the new executive chef of Terra Tempe Kitchen & Spirits, Steven Acosta is now executive chef of the Balfour Hotel in Miami Beach, Fla., Robert McGrattan is the new executive chef of Hotel Bennett in Charleston, S.C., Adam Resnick has been promoted to executive chef of the Kimpton Marlowe Hotel in Cambridge, Mass., and Juan Pablo Silva at Bacchus Kitchen & Bar in Grapevine, Texas.

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected] 

Follow him on Twitter: @foodwriterdiar

About the Author

Bret Thorn

Senior Food Editor, Nation's Restaurant News

Senior Food & Beverage Editor

Bret Thorn is senior food & beverage editor for Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality for Informa’s Restaurants and Food Group, with responsibility for spotting and reporting on food and beverage trends across the country for both publications as well as guiding overall F&B coverage. 

He is the host of a podcast, In the Kitchen with Bret Thorn, which features interviews with chefs, food & beverage authorities and other experts in foodservice operations.

From 2005 to 2008 he also wrote the Kitchen Dish column for The New York Sun, covering restaurant openings and chefs’ career moves in New York City.

He joined Nation’s Restaurant News in 1999 after spending about five years in Thailand, where he wrote articles about business, banking and finance as well as restaurant reviews and food columns for Manager magazine and Asia Times newspaper. He joined Restaurant Hospitality’s staff in 2016 while retaining his position at NRN. 

A magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University in Medford, Mass., with a bachelor’s degree in history, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Thorn also studied traditional French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine in Paris. He spent his junior year of college in China, studying Chinese language, history and culture for a semester each at Nanjing University and Beijing University. While in Beijing, he also worked for ABC News during the protests and ultimate crackdown in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Thorn’s monthly column in Nation’s Restaurant News won the 2006 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for best staff-written editorial or opinion column.

He served as president of the International Foodservice Editorial Council, or IFEC, in 2005.

Thorn wrote the entry on comfort food in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, 2nd edition, published in 2012. He also wrote a history of plated desserts for the Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, published in 2015.

He was inducted into the Disciples d’Escoffier in 2014.

A Colorado native originally from Denver, Thorn lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Bret Thorn’s areas of expertise include food and beverage trends in restaurants, French cuisine, the cuisines of Asia in general and Thailand in particular, restaurant operations and service trends. 

Bret Thorn’s Experience: 

Nation’s Restaurant News, food & beverage editor, 1999-Present
New York Sun, columnist, 2005-2008 
Asia Times, sub editor, 1995-1997
Manager magazine, senior editor and restaurant critic, 1992-1997
ABC News, runner, May-July, 1989

Education:
Tufts University, BA in history, 1990
Peking University, studied Chinese language, spring, 1989
Nanjing University, studied Chinese language and culture, fall, 1988 
Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine, Cértificat Elémentaire, 1986

Email: [email protected]

Social Media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bret-thorn-468b663/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bret.thorn.52
Twitter: @foodwriterdiary
Instagram: @foodwriterdiary

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