But wait, there’s more.

So then we thought, ok so that is the dinner, but why stop there? Why not turn this into what we would start to refer to as “the first ever multi-sensory dinner series”. What that meant in a practical sense was that there would not only be a dinner that you could taste, touch and smell, but there would also be a mini-doc-style video series that you could watch, and a podcast you could listen to. An entire culinary world to interact with, featuring the freshest talent in the space, discovered by us and delivered to our audience however they chose to consume it.

Our video series would be the final gift to the chefs - something they could then use to continue to build their name in the industry as a digital portfolio piece. The podcast would follow Elena’s journey as their sous chef, learning new things from each cook that passed through our program.

This whole project would come to be known as The Lineup

The Design.

The design for the project was meant to be stark, taking a key from the simplicity of the black and white aesthetic of most fine dining establishments. The logo incorporated two lines. The top line was where each chef’s signature would live, and the bottom line was where the date for their dinner would go. This would mean the mark could change, and was meant to be influenced and altered with each chef’s personal mark.

In practice, this was also a memento for guests, as the chef would physically sign each and every menu in the space for their name during the event.

 April 2020.

In what would be the most radical assault on the restaurant industry in our lifetime, the whole world we were working to try and make better, suddenly shuttered in violent fashion.

The eyes of everyone in the country turned to restaurants, as they were one of the most immediate casualties of the COVID pandemic. Because restaurants are already run on such razor thin margins, hundreds of them closed almost immediately upon the national lockdown, and would be a bellwether of what was looming for other industries in the coming weeks.

All at once, the ethos behind our project became even more important. We went into immediate action to turn the momentum we had from our first dinner into something that could continue to help the industry that had just lost so much.

From 0 to cookbook in two months.

The most obvious direction to take the project was to publish a cookbook. It was an idea that was had by many all at once, but ours was different in that it was going to give money directly back to any cook who contributed a recipe. We reached out to 30 out of work cooks from top restaurants all over the country (and in Canada), who not only sent in recipes for us to add to the book, but they also photographed all of their dishes themselves (through our coaching). Every recipe was meant to use simple pantry staples that could be easily purchased during the pandemic.

We rounded up a super talented team of editors, recipe testers, designers, and photographers, and produced an 110 page book in under two months. We were graced with a forward by Chef Kwame Onwuachi, and upon release, we even got a write up in the New York Times.

I have included the book here in it’s entirety. I encourage you, at the very least, to open it and give it a skim. It will be immediately apparent that this was no small feat.