intimidating, but it’s all in a day’s
work at The Breakers. If the
banquet team gets slammed, the
restaurant team, led by executive
chef of restaurants Anthony
Sicignano, helps out. And the
fast-paced atmosphere provides
ample opportunity to learn and
participate in creating a wide
variety of dishes.
not your
typical hotel
Banas runs no ordinary hotel
foodservice operation at
Chicago Marriott Downtown
Magnificent Mile. For starters,
nearly everything for Harvest
restaurant, Starbucks and room
service is made from scratch,
even in the bakeshop led by
Cheryl Brookhouzen, executive
pastry chef. “That’s unusual for a
hotel our size,” Banas says.
Although his hotel is part of the
Marriott chain, which means
employees can move from one
hotel to another throughout the
country, and perhaps the world,
he is free to run his kitchens and
create menus as he pleases. “We
have no standardized menus, just
some guidelines that really are
common sense.”
What his staff does have are
opportunities to grow their
own vegetables, make wine
and cheese, tap maple syrup
and take educational field trips
to learn new things. In the
bakeshop, where Brookhouzen
and her staff of 10 create
everything from muffins to
wedding cakes, there’s also
plenty of room for creativity.
Staff members may create
dessert menus and recipes
and move up as their skills
increase. “I want to nurture
people and help them grow,”
Brookhouzen says.
learn as
you go
It’s sink or swim at The Claremont
Hotel, with its three restaurants,
room service, 33,000 square
feet of banquet space and an
employee cafeteria. Thomsen
keeps it all going with a staff of
72. “There’s always something
going on. If there isn’t a party
today, there are 10 tomorrow,”
he says. “You never get ahead.
My office looks like that of an air
traffic controller.” Thomsen, who
was described as a “future chef”
in his sixth-grade yearbook,
Lori Eanes
notes you have to be married to
the job, and that he can’t think of
anything else he’d rather do.
on the menu
If you like rustic, you’d probably
love working for Percy Whatley,
CEC, who has a dual position
with Buffalo, N. Y.-based
concessionaire Delaware North
Company. He is corporate chef
for the western region, including
Yosemite National Park,
Wuksachi Lodge at Sequoia
National Park and The Queen
Mary in Long Beach, Calif. He’s
also executive chef at Ahwahnee
Dining Room, Yosemite’s
three-meals-a-day restaurant
inside The Ahwahnee Hotel. The
area is scenic, and employees are
often seasonal. There’s nothing
rustic about the mainly from-scratch food that Whatley and
his 60-member staff prepare,
though. In the evening, it ranges
from pasta to prime rib and duck
to fresh fish.
