David Standridge is a James Beard Award winner, the executive chef at the acclaimed Shipwright's Daughter in Mystic, Connecticut, and a pioneer of sustainable dining. He is recognized for his innovative and ecologically conscientious approach to seafood in a town where fishing is a way of life.
So how did Chef David go from foraging for berries in his backyard to New York City’s fine dining scene, and, eventually, to industry-wide recognition for his small seaport gem? He joined hosts Claudia Saric and Spencer Michiel on So You Want To Run a Restaurant to share his journey.
Though the quiet seaport town of Mystic seems an unlikely place to find restaurant fame, it’s actually just one of many waterfront stops in Chef David’s journey. He described an idyllic childhood in Vernon, at the northern tip of New Jersey and right along the Appalachian Trail. Chef David reminisced of time spent outdoors, picking berries, and playing on the water.
“We lived on a bunch of lakes. Fishing and being in the woods really was most of my childhood,” said David. He also noted that he spent a lot of time with his grandparents on City Island. He described the Bronx seaport as “an amazingly weird place – half Nantucket, half Bronx, and just a mile and a half long.”
There, David spent hours on the family boat fishing off the coast of this tiny island, and did the same during annual summer vacations in Montauk. As he told us, “That was the trifecta of food influences for me.”
In this sense, David’s voyage always pointed toward the Shipwright’s Daughter. But he stopped at all kinds of ports along the way.
David actually had quite a few jobs before he found his true calling. As he told us, “I didn't start cooking professionally in a real kitchen until I was 25, which is kind of late.”
On top of the late start, he experienced more than a few twists and turns on the way to success. As he explained, “I had this pathway in fine dining that I thought was going somewhere, and then it didn't. Then I had another pathway with wellness cooking, and that just hit a wall.”
“You kind of think you're going somewhere then that stops, and you have to start over and try again,” Chef David observed. Those twists and turns gave him plenty of valuable experience, in particular his 13 years in New York’s fiercely competitive fine dining scene. It was there that he earned two Michelin stars for his work at L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon. It was also there that he learned just how intense kitchen life can be.
Chef David worked in a restaurant owned by the late Joël Robuchon. The legendary chef passed away in 2018 but his restaurant group still holds the record for earning 31 Michelin stars.
But as Chef David told us, working under the executive chef in L'Atelier was absolutely brutal. Even the moments that seemed like opportunities were painful learning experiences… and we mean literally painful. As Chef David explained, “They put me in a prep role, and I finally got called up to the front kitchen with the executive chef. And the sous chef was like, ‘Don't be happy. He's just bringing you up there because he wants to beat you.’”
If that sounds like an exaggeration, Chef David reiterated, “He just tortured me. I was the new guy. And the culture there was very cutthroat. It wasn't like, ‘Help the new guy.’ It was like, ‘Trip the new guy and laugh while the chef beats him.”
It sounds rough, but Chef David acknowledged that this type of intensity is common in the industry. He even admitted that he kind of got used to it. Still, when his wife became pregnant, he decided it was time for a change of scenery. When he learned that the Whaler’s Inn in Mystic was looking for an executive chef to open its on-premise restaurant, he immediately jumped at the opportunity.
“I was literally like, ‘Okay, I'm getting out of New York. I'm gonna go open a little restaurant in Mystic and just fade into obscurity,’” he told us. “Didn't work out that way.”
It certainly did not. Instead, Chef David was named 2024’s James Beard Award Winner. His “little restaurant” earned recognition as one of the New York Times’ best restaurants that same year. And in spite of everything he learned in the New York scene, he runs his kitchen free of casual violence and intimidation.
In fact, he told us that one of the most rewarding parts of his job is seeing the people in his kitchen succeed. He explained, “What I actually really love about restaurants is watching people grow into bigger roles. We have such a talented team. It's a lot about what they want to do moving forward, because your team is your whole thing.”
Another one of Chef David’s things is sustainability. His unique approach to the local sealife plays a big part in the recognition he and his restaurant have earned. One thing that sets Chef David apart is his focus on marine species that are underutilized by the industry. [Watch the whole episode above to find out how Chef David helped put the invasive Green Crab on the culinary map].
He explained that many of the nearby fishing operations are “fishing for New York, they're fishing for Las Vegas. They're not fishing for local consumption. And so they don't want to catch anything that they're not going to get orders in the 1000s of pounds for and that's why we have these species that are pressured.”
“The whole premise of sustainability is diversifying what you eat so that you're not pressuring any one thing,” Chef David explained. This relationship with the surrounding ecology also helped bring David to the attention of the James Beard Foundation, both because of his environmentally conscious approach and because of the utterly unique menu it produces.
Chef David’s philosophy toward sustainability goes well beyond the local ecology.
“It goes deeper than the food,” he told us. “We want the people who work for us to have sustainable careers so they can stay in the restaurant industry and not burn out and make a living and have benefits. And we want the people we buy food and products from to have sustainable business models where they can make enough money fishing to support their families and have it be a viable career.”
This is why he works hard through his restaurant to support the local fishing community and to help keep the waters around Mystic rich with sealife. One of the coolest shows of support is visible on the menu itself.
As Chef David told us, “We try to put the name of the fishing vessel below the dish for where the fish comes from. Fishermen don't get the credit that farmers get. Everybody's talking about where their carrots came from, but no one really talks about where the fish came from. We don't have that traceability. So it's really big for them.”
If there is one thing that Chef David hopes will come from his success and recognition, it’s the freedom for others to experiment with sustainability in their own settings. He explained that this has been the most exciting part of winning the James Beard Award.
He told us, “It's really encouraging chefs to do things like this in their own worlds – looking at different ways to support sustainability in their communities and in their cooking. It's really taking off.”
For many restaurant owners and operators, technology is helping make these creative changes more manageable and intuitive. To find out how technology can help your restaurant reduce waste, improve efficiency, control food costs and more, reach out for your free, personalized consultation today.