Meet 10 Rising Power Players in American Fine Dining
Last year, we debuted our ranking of the 50 Most Powerful People in American Fine Dining, where we took stock of the people who had the greatest influence on the industry. The 2024 edition of the Power List returns in a week, with nearly 200 chefs, architects, restaurateurs, media members, food festival organizers, luxury ingredient purveyors, and more voting to determine who most moves the needle economically and creatively in restaurants today.
However, this year we added a little wrinkle to the process. We asked those same voters who they believed represented the upcoming generation of power players. From established restaurateurs to ascendent chefs to a man who is bringing a whole new model of restaurant finance to the fore, these are the rising stars who will shape fine dining in the years to come.
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Max and Ben Goldberg
If you’ve eaten well around Nashville, you’ve likely passed through one of the 12 restaurants brothers Max and Ben Goldberg have opened under their company Strategic Hospitality. Catbird Seat, Bastion, Kisser, Locust, and Henrietta Red are just a few, while alums of the restaurant group have gone on to open their own successful spots in town, too, like Bad Idea and Iggy’s. Starting their company back in 2006, the local boys have partnered with outstanding chef talent at their multiple concepts and shown a willingness to be creative with what a restaurant can be. Kisser is a lunch-only restaurant that has still managed to garner national acclaim; Locust, one of America’s best restaurants, is only open Friday to Sunday; Catbird Seating is a tasting-counter restaurant that has had a rotating set of chef residencies leading its culinary vision; Claudette Zepeda’s taqueria is inside the Major League Soccer team’s stadium; and Bastion is a big, casual cocktail bar with a sophisticated tasting-menu restaurant hidden inside, run by chef and partner Josh Habiger. And if you would need any other indication of the sway that the Goldbergs hold in Nashville, none other than Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood turned to them to operate their new honky-tonk, Friends in Low Places on Broadway.
Johann Moonesinghe
For all the money that flows through the restaurant industry to get places off the ground, the funding behind restaurants can be quite opaque. The dining public may encounter chefs, bartenders, somms, and restaurateurs when they hear about places where they want to dine, but they rarely know where the money comes from. Well, for more and more restaurants around the country, some of that money is coming from Johann Moonesinghe and his company InKind. To the consumer, InKind functions almost like a house account for a restaurant, where you download an app, put money into an account, and get requisite perks as well bonus credit to use at a restaurant. But on the backend, it’s a new model of restaurant financing. InKind provides capital for a restaurant, giving it, say, $100,000 directly and getting $200,000 in food and beverage credits in return to dole out to its users as bonuses. This isn’t debt or equity; it’s a cash injection. Additionally, the company also shares its findings from consumers with restaurants to help their operations. The Austin-based firm now has more than 1.5 million users and 2,600 restaurants on the platform and has put $280 million of capital into restaurants already. And Moonesinghe is a restaurant owner himself with the Guest House and Ember Kitchen in Austin, Etta in Scottsdale and Chicago, Aya Pastry in the Windy City, and a forthcoming location of the Guest House that will open in Las Vegas.
Jennifer Vitagliano, Camari Mick, Mary Attea, and Nicole Vitagliano
While Michelin-starred Musket Room has been open since 2013, its current incarnation formed in 2020, as executive chef Mary Attea took the helm in February of that year and executive pastry chef Camari Mick joined in November 2020. Those rising-star chefs joined forces with twin sisters and restaurateurs Nicole and Jennifer Vitagliano to create a quartet who’ve made a massive splash in fine dining in the post-pandemic years. Under Attea and Mick, Musket Room has morphed from a New Zealand–focused restaurant to one pulling from a variety of culinary influences—maintaining the establishment’s Michelin star along the way. In 2023, Elizabeth Street Hospitality opened Raf’s, an all-day café in an old bakery space. Last month the Vitagliano sisters continued to spread their influence, venturing to the chic home-decor store Quarters where they helped develop the bar. And the next project on the quartet’s plate will take them to Union Square to open Café Zaffri, a Levantine restaurant at the hotel and private members’ club the Twenty Two New York.
Michael Rafidi
When Michael Rafidi made his solo debut with Albi in Washington, D.C., he wasted no time exhibiting his immense talent as a chef. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t actually have that much time to show off, as Covid-19 lockdowns began about a month after he opened his Levantine restaurant. When he did return to full service, Albi nabbed a Michelin star, and over in Georgetown, his fast-casual Yellow Cafe (originally opened next to Albi) has been a hit as well and has now expanded to a flagship location in D.C.’s Union Market. At the James Beard Awards this year, Rafidi took home the night’s top honor, winning the title for Outstanding Chef in America. He has followed that up with his next restaurant, La’ Shukran, a sultry rooftop bar and bistro blending French classics with Middle Eastern influences. In a city that is the seat of American political power, Rafidi is establishing himself as a power player in his chosen profession.
Cherif Mbodji, Victoria Pappas Bludorn, and Aaron Bludorn
Back in 2019, Aaron Bludorn left his post as executive chef at Michelin-starred Café Boulud to head to his wife Victoria Pappas Bludorn’s hometown to open their own restaurant along with front-of-house extraordinaire Cherif Mbodji, who’d worked with Bludorn at Café Boulud. Of course, down in Texas, the Pappas name is synonymous with restaurants, as Pappas Bludorn’s family currently has more than 100 of them across eight states. The trio started their Houston restaurant group with the Bludorn restaurant, serving new American fare with Gulf ingredients and exceptional service. They followed with Navy Blue, leaning into seafood, and then created their version of a high-end neighborhood restaurant with Bar Bludorn. Next, they’re preparing to open an all-day bistro at the forthcoming Hotel Saint Augustine. The Bludorn Hospitality Group currently employs 300 people across restaurants and operations, and the leadership stays engaged with the community, with Mbodji serving as a board member for Southern Smoke. They’ll also bring culinary talent from around the country down to Houston to host a chef series launching in 2025.
Danny Garcia
Though he has just taken the helm of his own restaurant for the first time, Danny Garcia had voters predicting big things for him. The judges of Top Chef certainly agree, as Garcia took home the coveted title in the most recent season, winning the most prize money in the show’s 21-season history. It was a culmination of years spent in exceptional kitchens, including NoMad, the French Laundry, Crown Shy, Saga, and Belon in Hong Kong. His new restaurant, Time and Tide, opened in October, inspired by Grand Central Oyster Bar but far from a knock-off. It’s a modern New York seafood restaurant, with creative flares like a giant cheddar goldfish served with bay butter and a halibut pithivier. Of course, this restaurant was created with Garcia’s mentor, Jamal James Kent, who died of a heart attack this summer as this project was coalescing on 360 Park Avenue. Kent’s company Saga Hospitality Group was rechristened Kent Hospitality Group, and the project stayed on track. Garcia is honoring Kent’s memory, but he’s also forging his new path, and he still has the close-knit crew of talented chefs at KHG at his side.
Aisha Ibrahim
In the storied history of Seattle’s most famous restaurant, Canlis, no woman led the kitchen in seven decades until Aisha Ibrahim took the reins in 2021. As James Beard Award–winning chef Brady Williams moved on to open Tomo, brothers and third-generation owners Brian and Mark Canlis recruited Ibrahim to come to the Pacific Northwest after her fine-dining project in Bangkok was hampered by Covid. She had previously risen through the ranks at Michelin three-star Manresa and worked at another three-star in Spain’s Azurmendi in addition to its sister restaurant Aziamendi in Thailand. Greatly influenced by her short time in Japan, as well as her Filipino heritage and work in Southeast Asia, Ibrahim has crafted a multicourse menu such as sablefish with hazelnut, yuzu, and caviar, and American Wagyu with Tsuyahime rice, egg yolk, and allium. Since she joined Canlis, the accolades have rolled in, with her winning a Best New Chef award from Food & Wine in 2023 and being named to Time’s Next100 list of emerging leaders in America this year. Ibrahim also recently judged the San Pellegrino Young Chef Academy competition and will be at featured chef at Jeremy Fox’s 8 Nights at Birdie G’s this December.
Sungchul Shim
Born and raised in South Korea, Sungchul Shim made his way to New York in 2005 and spent time in some of the city’s best kitchens from Le Bernardin to Per Se. In 2019, he set out on his own, opening Kochi, his ode to Korean food cooked on skewers. His tasting-menu spot garnered a Michelin star in 2021, and he followed with another tasting-menu concept, this time built around Korean hand rolls. Again, Shim earned a Michelin star. And the chef-restaurateur kept pushing. There’s DonDon, his Korean barbecue restaurant, and Mari.ne, his more-casual hand roll spot. And there are three more concepts on the way: Gui, his take on the steakhouse in the heart of Manhattan’s Theater District; Bar 92, a cocktail spot with modern Asian bar bites; and a 12-seat, 13-course Korean fine dining concept in the works, too.
Felipe Riccio and June Rodil
On a corner in Houston’s hip Montrose neighborhood, a fine-dining empire has been taking shape over the last half decade. Led by Master Sommelier June Rodil and chef Felipe Riccio, Goodnight Hospitality now operates four distinct concepts: the casual Montrose Cheese and Wine; the chic spot serving modern European comfort food Rosie Cannonball; the gorgeous Mediterranean tasting-menu restaurant March; and the newest sibling to join the family, the Marigold Club, a luxurious ode to London’s supper clubs. The throughline of each of these places is a melding of excellent food with an eye for beautiful design and a devout attention to high-quality service. Riccio brings to the empire his time in some of the world’s best kitchens, from Osteria Francescana in Italy to Azurmendi in Spain to Blue Hill at Stone Barns in New York. And before Houston became home, Rodil established herself a leader in Austin’s food scene as the VP of Operations for McGuire Moorman Hospitality. She’s also a force in the world of wine, becoming a voice for change after the Court of Master Sommeliers was fractured by a barrage of scandals. And in recent years she has launched her own sparkling wine, June’s Rosé.
E.J. Lagasse
He’s a young chef with a very famous name—a moniker forged in foodie minds well before E.J. Lagasse was even born. Emeril Lagasse, the chef patron of his celebrated eponymous New Orleans restaurant, helped forge the modern celebrity chef each time he yelled “BAM!” on his Food Network show in the late ‘90s and early aughts. Now, he has called his son, Emeril John Lagasse IV, home to take the helm of the family business. The 21-year-old E.J. has long chased the chef life, spending summers of his youth working for Daniel Boulud and Eric Ripert. He further honed his skills after cooking school, going abroad to work at Michelin three-star restaurants Core and Frantzén. When he returned to the Big Easy, he and his father stripped the decades-old Emeril down to the studs and turned it into a 12-table tasting-menu restaurant as well as a wine bar where diners can order à la carte. Since reopening, E.J. has also hit the road, cooking with Ryan Ratino at Michelin two-starred Jônt in D.C. and joining forces with Eric Ripert for an $800-per-person, eight-course tasting-menu collaboration at Le Bernardin. Meanwhile, back in New Orleans, the expansion recently continued: E.J. and his father opened their first new establishment in the Crescent City in nearly a decade with the debut of 34 Restaurant and Bar, an ode to their Portuguese heritage.
