Mia Van de Water, MS
Biography
Mia Van de Water is a restaurant industry veteran with a career spanning nearly two decades, including 9 years with Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group at Union Square Cafe and North End Grill, where she served as beverage director and was named one of Food & Wine’s Sommeliers of the Year in 2016. In 2017, she joined the sommelier team at the three-Michelin-starred Eleven Madison Park, the 2017 World’s Best Restaurant. After a brief hiatus into the wine retail sector during the height of the pandemic, she is now the assistant general manager at Cote Korean Steakhouse, which has one Michelin star and won the James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant in 2018.
Mia passed the Court of Master Sommeliers' Advanced exam in 2014 with the highest score of the year, earning her a Rudd Scholarship and the Johnston Medal. She competed extensively on her journey to the Master Sommelier exam, in the Guild of Sommelier’s TopSomm Competition, winning the regional championship and the bronze medal nationally in 2016 and representing the United States at the Chaîne de Rôtisseurs Jeune Sommelier Competition International Final in 2015 after placing second in the American national finals. She passed the Master Sommelier exam (twice) in 2018.