Bryce Shuman

You can be born near Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and then happen, at little over the age of four, to taste caribou meat and snap at seals, feeding on the food from the jungle of Costa Rica and on with the fish from the Artic Sea. This is the story of Bryce Shuman, the son of a gourmand father and a cultural anthropologist mother with a degree in nutrition, a work that led the family to move to the most inaccessible areas in the world with an imperative: eat local.

Having food in one’s destiny could however turn out to be troublesome, if you don’t have both humility and constancy: those that were necessary to start one’s cursus honorum from the lowest step, that of a kitchen hand at the Mesh Café in Greenville, NC. With two results: showing a particular gift for cooking, with a quick promotion to chef, and meeting a waitress, Jen, who would then become his wife. In 2003 he moved to San Francisco to attend the California Culinary Academy during the day, and work at Postrio at night, with the famous chef Wolfgang Puck: here, thanks to his first master, Jack Yoss, he learnt the first culinary secrets.

These are the early steps of a career that was soon destined to touch much higher ground: after Rubicon, also in the Californian city, a long journey across Europe, he moved to the East Coast, soon landing at Daniel Humm’s Eleven Madison Park. Here he remained for 6 years, covering all jobs up to becoming Humm’s executive sous chef; he was by his side when the restaurant received four stars from The New York Times, three from the Michelin guide and arrived at number ten in the World’s 50 Best Restaurants.

In May 2013 a new turning point: with an ex colleague from Eleven, Eamon Rockey, he opened Betony, in Midtown, on the 57th between Fifth and Sixth Avenue: a laid back restaurant with a menu inspired by familiar flavours, territorial ingredients presented in a modern way. In the first year since its opening, it received three stars from The New York Times, was nominated "Restaurant of the Year" by Esquire and was shortlisted for the title of “Best New Restaurant 2014” by the James Beard Foundation.