Jean-François Bruel

Raised on a farm in a small village outside of Lyon, trained under French Master Chefs including Georges Blanc, Paul Haeberlin and Michel Guérard, named Chef at a noteworthy Manhattan restaurant at age 28 – the journey is that of Jean-François Bruel, named Executive Chef at DANIEL in 2003. Like his mentor, Daniel Boulud, Jean-François has a talent for combining the best of French and American cooking – fusing traditional techniques learned in France with fine international and American ingredients and the open-minded approach and spectrum of tastes New York City inspires.

Jean-François joined Daniel Boulud in New York in 1996, first spending two years as a “Chef de Partie” at DANIEL. From 1998, he went on to work for three years as first Sous Chef at Café Boulud. In his own words, this taught him to think more “à l’Amércaine” while still preserving his French roots. Next, he was made Executive Chef for the 2001 opening of Daniel Boulud’s Midtown Manhattan db Bistro Moderne, where he became known as equal parts daring New Yorker and Rhóne Valley culinary whiz-kid, not to mention winner of the James Beard Foundations prestigious Rising Star Chef award in 2002.

This pedigree places the Jean-François Bruel firmly at the helm of the kitchen of DANIEL, where he leads a team of over 30 cooks and sources the finest ingredients from around the world at a restaurant that has earned three stars from The New York Times, two stars in the Michelin Guide, named #8 on Restaurant Magazine’s list of the “World’s 50 Best Restaurants” and recognized with a prestigious James Beard Award for ‘Outstanding Restaurant’. Each year the latter goes to only one restaurant in the United States that serves as a national standard bearer for consistent quality and excellence in food, atmosphere and service.