Lissy Darnell

Chef

Lissy Darnell is our in-camp chef residing in the Catskill mountains. Lissy began her career in the Hudson Valley, inspired by the active food culture and the bounty of local farms in the Hudson Valley. Since then, she has worked at several restaurants in and around the Hudson Valley and Catskills, including The Corner at Hotel Tivoli, Deer Mountain Inn, and Kitty’s Market, seeking techniques for capturing the ephemeral flavors of our intense seasons. She now spends her days cooking and working at Newton Farm and Mossy Stone Farm.

Sophie Grant

Chef

Sophie Grant is chef, event curator, and experience designer based in the Catskill Mountains. Motivated by her love for farmers, seasonality of ingredients, and the desire to connect with her food, Sophie creates wholesome meals made with love. Fresh from the source, foods are often picked that day and are mindfully based on what a grower has in abundance. Sophie combines her taste for the Mediterranean with local and wild ingredients available in the Catskills and Hudson Valley for brightly colored, flavorful meals that bring people together.

Cameo Fucci

Chef

Cameo Fucci is a chef, educator and pasta maker based in Brooklyn, NY. Growing up in an Italian - American household, food has always been a big part of her life. She began her career at a small Portuguese cafe in San Francisco in 2014 which eventually brought her to kitchens in Maine, Boston, Italy, and finally here to NYC.

Dan Romero

Chef

With 12 years in the culinary industry, Dan Romero specializes in seasonal dishes and “slow food”. A background that spans Cajun, French, and American comfort food, as well as vegan cuisine; Romero works closely with the farmers of the Catskills to highlight the bounty of flavors the region has to offer. Half Acre is coming to Stamford, NY in July.

Gabrielle Macafee

Chef

Gabrielle Macafee is the chef and host of Lucky Dinner Club. With an emphasis on the joy of building community through food, Lucky Dinner Club is the perfect place to meet friends, collaborators, and maybe even find a special someone or two. Regardless of what you're looking for, everyone is bound to have a fortunate experience at Lucky Dinner Club.

Russell Markus

Chef

Led by intuition and working exclusively with the freshest ingredients local markets and farms have to offer, his cooking style balances simple, complex, and unexpected flavor combinations. He believes that food is a vessel, accessible to all, with the potential to elevate the profoundly human experience of breaking bread together into something profound —something to be cherished and celebrated. Expect to eat family style, passing plates, mixing dishes, and enjoying the company of others.

Chakriya Un

Chef

Chakriya Un celebrates the joy of Khmer American cuisine, drawing from community connections and the biodiversity of whatever landscape she's in—be it woods, farm, family garden, or supermarket—creating vibrant, memorable food unique to each setting. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Chakriya brings her distinct approach to Cambodian food to spaces and places across the United States and the world through pop-ups and events.

COMMONPLACE

Commonplace Club is a curated Brooklyn-based dinner party series offering a 6 course menu with accompanying drink pairings. Each dinner centers on a common theme but aims to reconceptualize the familiar for curious palates. Commonplace Club is hosted by two friends, Natalie, who is the chef behind these dinners, and Gabe, who designs the drink pairings.

Mac Sharkey

Chef

Clare views food as a medium for storytelling, where each meal becomes a unique and tactile experience shared among those who consume and converse over it. While in college, Clare began cooking weekly dinners for herself and two friends, desperate to fill the void left by her mother's expertly home-cooked dinners. As months passed, these dinners started hosting more and more people, eventually evolving into a regularly attended 15-person weekly event. It was during this time that Clare realized the powerful ability of cooking to combat loneliness, foster connections, explore and learn about different cultures and histories, and satisfy hunger. This realization has led her on a journey through various professional culinary endeavors, including working in numerous downtown Manhattan restaurant kitchens, collaborating on Shy's Burgers pop-ups, and contributing to the Harapeko catering company. All Clare truly desires is to provide comfort and nourishment to those around her, and she is thrilled to share her boundless exploration and passion with anyone and everyone who's hungry!

Sofia Swanson

With a background in farming and sustainability, Sofia Swanson is chef and recipe developer fully invested in seasonal and local product. Her food is highly influenced by history and nostalgia, creating flavors that bring diners together through memory and emotion. She loves nothing more than creating community and seeing people connect over a meal. You can find her now doing all things pastry at Wildair, Tusk, Brass, and Bar Contra.

Hannah Musante and Reed Palmer

both from California, came to New York to cook! Despite working in different kitchens, they find joy in their shared love of seasonal and locally sourced food. They often spend their off days creating and experimenting with new recipes and coming together to make meals for their friends and family.

AMY KARP

Amy Karp’s culinary approach is rooted in the belief that food is a powerful connector, and that gathering over a meal is the best way to bring people together. With a background in event production and a desire to build community when she was new to NYC, Amy began her culinary career by hosting dinner parties and pop-ups across the city. Her cooking combines simplicity with refined techniques and locally sourced, seasonal ingredients. Always emphasizing warmth, Amy’s dishes are crafted to highlight the joy of shared experiences and celebrate the beauty of coming together over food.

Maya Yadid

Chef

Maya yadid is a multidisciplinary artist who uses food as part of her medium. Her cooking style is rooted in Mediterranean and middle-eastern flavors, with a focus on seasonal produce. Yadid hosts dinners that often combines sculptural and performative elements. She also created a line of colorful ceramic plates, in which she uses to celebrate the joy of eating around a table.

Callie & Hayley

Chef

Callie and Hayley (aka @lesbianfoodaccount) are an almost-four-year-old couple who fell in love through eating and cooking. Together they find that nourishing people is the best way to share their love with others, and believe that food is the best vessel for connection. Both raised by families who value cooking and entertaining, the LFA team is lucky to have deep roots in the kitchen. Now mainly cooking in their Brooklyn apartment, they lean on their experience working in the service industry in NYC, self teaching, and traveling to eat whenever they can.

Phil Milner

Chef

Philip grew up knowing he wanted to cook; however, it took him a while to finally make his way into a professional kitchen. After giving the “traditional” career path a try, he decided to ditch his office job in Los Angeles for new role as a Chef de Partie at Eleven Madison Park. Since then, he has focused his efforts on gaining as much experience in as many restaurants as possible, both stateside and aboard. Claiming to not have a specific cuisine, Philip draws inspiration from nostalgia, seasonal produce, and flavor combinations he thinks push the envelope.

Edmond Hong

Chef

Edmond Hong is a pop-up chef that celebrates Asian American cuisine. He is popping up around New York City, with high energy and fun food. His pop up Güd Güds is rooted in Korean cuisine that is incorporated with inspiration from different Southeast Asian cuisines. He focuses on taking familiar flavors that evoke nostalgia and bringing them together in refreshing fun ways meant to be shared with loved ones.

Mac Sharkey

Chef

Mac Sharkey celebrates the delight of nostalgia in her cooking, viewing it as a means to nourish the inner child while also sharing meals with others. Mac began her culinary journey in Maine, contributing to a mutual aid effort group, and she now brings that ethos of creating simple, comforting pleasures to a small Italian restaurant in Manhattan where she is currently based.

Phoebe Tran

CHEF

Bé Bếp celebrates the diversity of Vietnamese cuisine. Drawing from traditional cooking methods and family recipes, chef and founder Phoebe Tran creates dishes that aim to capture the flavors of her childhood and travels across Vietnam. Her distinct approach to Vietnamese food centers seasonality and community, and she carries this ethos through all of Bé Bếp’s popups and events. As a farmer, Phoebe is focused on trialing Southeast Asian herbs and vegetables as a means to preserve culturally relevant seeds and remain rooted in her practice on land. 

Victoria Kaputskaya

Born in Belarus, Victoria loved spending most of her childhood on her grandma’s vegetable farm, where she helped plant, grow, and harvest garden fresh food. As an adult, Victoria finds her greatest inspiration in nature. Graduating from The Institute of Culinary Education, she went on to cook at Jean-Georges, plant-forward restaurant, abcV. Her motivation now lies in teaching others how simple it is to create flavorful and vegetable-forward dishes through her blog, Victoria’s Earth Kitchen and creating experiences where people can celebrate the simple things in life through food and hospitality.

TRISTAN KWONG

Hi! I’m Tristan, I am a Cantonese American chef making Cantonese American food. I grew up in Queens, NYC, the most culturally diverse place in the world and my cooking is shaped in equal parts by my lived experience and my heritage. I strive to provide an experience that is both familiar and different and ideally cooked over an open fire!

Chef Tristan Kwong grew up in Queens, NYC, and his cuisine is largely inspired by his proximity to the world’s most culturally diverse place in the world. His Cantonese heritage and time at Bonnie’s Brooklyn has also focused his food through the lens of a “New Cantonese American” to bring you reimagined classics, both Chinese and American, that blur the line between the two

Marisa Nakamura

Chef

To cook or not to cook?- That has never been the question! For as long as she can remember Marisa has been transfixed by food. Privy since youth, to the delights of the kitchen, she likes to spend her precious time immersed in culinary pursuits. Whether it be mixing dough for pastries at her workplace or pensively slurping a steaming bowl of pho on her day off she is constantly extrapolating inspiration from the nourishments around her. For Miss Nakamura food is fascinating, fun, and tricky noon and night! (teehee!!)

Luke Vu

Chef

Nothing remains as revealing as the food we give to others and the the way we eat together. To present and shares plates with others is a form of relationship that Luke seeks on a daily basis. Raised in Arkansas to Vietnamese immigrant parents, Luke has witnessed and integrated the fundamental ideas of mingling cultures and utilizing adaptation of one’s surroundings to one’s expression. Food serves as his main form of expression, alongside the simplicity of smiling.

Magdalena O’Neal

Chef

A California native who was born and raised in the Bay Area and now resides in New York. As a full-time freelancer, she focuses on combining her background in the editorial and culinary world through written and video content while being a chef.

After interning at Chez Panisse for a summer in the pastry deparment, she became set on using her editorial skills to nurture her community’s relationship with food; going on to study media and professional writing at the University of Illinois Chicago. 

Chole Chandler

Chef

Chole Chandler is a passionate home cook and private chef from Upstate NY, on a journey that celebrates the impact of food on our bodies and the power of shared meals. With her belief in adaptability and growth, Chloe sees cooking as a tool for experimentation and play, embracing mistakes as opportunities to learn. She brings the values of malleability and forgiveness to the table with her food, fostering a sense of togetherness.

Mathew Lee

Chef

Matthew Yee is a chef from New York City. Born and raised in both a Chinese and Jewish home, he explores the intersection between these two cuisines. With a diverse professional background that includes food science and farming, he is now shaping his cooking identity through Queenies, where he is developing his own culinary style, playfully referred to as "Chewish Cuisine

Fabian Dassler

CHEF

A Berlin-based chef, he started cooking when he was 14. He has always had a passion for the culinary arts and sees the food world as a place to express himself, drawing from life experiences and the people and places around him. His aim is to create comforting surprises: simple yet complex.

Abby Kirn

⁠Abby attended culinary school at the CIA and got her first culinary job at The French Laundry, a three Michelin restaurant in Yountville, CA. After moving to New York, she later joined the opening team of Al Coro, which received two Michelin stars in its first year.⁠

Abby and her partner ended up leaving the fine dining world to launch their own company, Village, bringing together artists, musicians, farmers, performers and beyond to build community and reimagine what fine dining could be.

Julia

Julie is a Brooklyn based chef & baker. She loves the mutability of seasonal produce and uses it to guide her while cooking. She pulls inspiration from shapes, patterns, and colors found in nature. You can find her cooking online at @foodbebo and in person at @dinnerpartybk