Award-Winning ICE Alumni Visit NY Campus — and Share Rich Insights on Female Entrepreneurship

Big name chefs, many of whom are ICE alumni, often visit our New York and Los Angeles campuses. This benefit — having access to influential chefs because of the school's locations in two American culinary capitals — is unique to ICE.

Last week, that benefit was on full display when award-winning chefs and Michelin Guide favorites Sohui Kim and Shenarri Freeman (both ) stopped by ICE’s NYC kitchens for an exclusive panel and talkback.

The event was part of our Women’s History Month programming that, in addition to Chefs Sohui and Shenarri, featured esteemed hospitality industry veteran and ICE Chef-Instructor Kathryn Gordon.

The three chef-entrepreneurs spoke at length about their experiences as women in culinary businesses, addressing topics ranging from self-doubt and “paying your dues,” to financing your vision and cultivating camaraderie among colleagues.

Imposter syndrome is real (and also, not)

For Chef Shenarri, self-doubt is expressed as imposter syndrome, which she said “comes and goes.’

“I try not to have imposter syndrome,” she said. “But sometimes you can’t help it.”

This revelation is both surprising and routine: surprising because Chef Shenarri, who owns in NYC and is a 2023 Forbes "30 Under 30" honoree and James Beard Award Semifinalist for "Best Chef: New York State”; routine because she’s a woman.

In recanting an experience with a celebrity client, wherein she was admittedly star-struck and not entirely sure why she’d been sought out, she referenced the pep talk a close friend gave her.

“[She said to me,] ‘They’re coming to you because they know your food is great. They’re requesting you because they want your services, and they want to support what you’re doing."

"The imposter syndrome went out the door,” she said.

Chef Sohui offered a story around the kind of doubt that appears first as, “Can I do this?” — questioning her own capability — and then as, “Do I want to do this?”

“There were nights [working the line],” she said, “that I was completely spent, like I had run five marathons back-to-back-to-back.”

One experience — her first in fine dining — was “like that scene in The Bear where Carmy opens for lunch, and the order tickets in the kitchen wouldn’t shut the heck up the entire six-hour shift," she said.

“I kept hearing it in my dreams,” she said, laughing while mimicking the tick-tick-tick sound of the order ticket machine.

“I had a moment when I was watching that show where I was like, ‘I can’t. I gotta’ shut this off. It’s triggering,’" she said.

But then, she notes the flip side: “[There are] nights where you’re on top of the tickets and you feel a deep sense of accomplishment, like, 'I did just run a marathon. I did just win the world series,’” she said.

The takeaway, say both, is a chef two-fold: it’s worth it, and you’re worth it.

Paying dues still exists — but the fee is different

On the matter of paying your dues, which in chef-speak — and the words of Chef Sohui — is generally understood to mean “repetitive cooking on the line with chefs yelling at you,” the panelists had different experiences but similar opinions.

“Sometimes I was like, ‘I’m in a mental institution right now [with all this yelling]. But that was considered ‘paying your dues.’ The paying of dues nowadays is different,” Chef Sohui said.

“The job itself is really hard, but it was really rough 20 years ago," she added.

Chef-Instructor Kathryn agreed — but with a caveat: “[The mentally-taxing work environment] is still too prevalent, unless you’re in a woman-driven business, where they are hiring mostly women. With that leadership and identity — then it can be a very positive situation.”

Dollars and sense = success

Women and men also tend to have different experiences when it comes to financing a restaurant, according to the panelists.

“The capital is not always readily available,” Chef Sohui said.

When she sought financing for , her most recent endeavor and another to yield a James Beard Award Best Chef nomination, the venture capitalists she solicited were “a lot of dudes, and they wanted to be not-so-silent partners, and there were a lot of strings attached,” she said.

Ultimately, the restaurant was funded primarily by small donations from longtime supporters and patrons.

This is one of several reasons why knowing your numbers and solidifying your vision is vital. As the co-founder of , a culinary entrepreneur consultancy, Chef-Instructor Kathryn says this is a common mistake in organizations owned by women.

“In my experience, the women [I’ve consulted with] often just want to get started, charge ahead,” she said. “And it’s a mistake.”

According to Chef Kathryn, understanding “how the economy is going to impact your business financially,” can be the difference between bankruptcy and success.

“I certainly wish someone had sat me down and discussed the financial side of things,” Chef Sohui said. “... that I’d taken more of the business-type courses [for restaurants] so that I wasn’t learning the lessons as I went along.”

“But maybe I wouldn’t have done it if I had known all the numbers,” she said, adding that “you learn twice as much from mistakes that you make [as you do] from the successes.”

Day-to-day occurrences were the bigger shock for Chef Shenarri; in her words: “the things you just can’t prepare for.”

“Something like your produce order not arriving or your farmer running out of something that’s on your special menu for the day or your cooks calling out — all of the things that you don’t consider and that happen behind the scenes of a restaurant … It’s not something you can really learn,” she said.

Validate — and lock in — your vision

What you can learn — and what you must lock down — is your vision and mission. On this, the panelists unanimously agreed.

“Take [your business proposal] very seriously,” Chef Sohui said, “because it’s the blueprint for how you’re going to make [your] restaurant — so it has to be complete with the menu, the way that the money is going to be spent … and the culture, which is what sets [your] restaurant apart from the other 500,000 restaurants in [New York] city.”

“In terms of research for opening restaurants, it needs to be hands-on,” Chef Shenarri said, “whether that’s going to culinary school, traveling, seeing what other people are cooking in other parts of the world and getting familiar with other ingredients, learning about food systems, getting to know the farmers, eating out … You have to explore,” she said, adding that being consistent while staying “mindful of the times and what people are going through” count, too.

One example: “Eggs are high right now, so maybe you create a menu that’s not egg-heavy,” Chef Shenarri said, “and then you don’t have to charge your customers as much money.”

The nod to respect — for the work, food, guests and team — was an oft-cited concept over the course of the panel.

Chef Sohui's mission when opening her restaurants was to balance two things: her artistic vision for opening a restaurant with the respect and humility restaurateurs must show their staff.

“You have to live it and preach it and be able to translate that to everyone that you hire,” she said.

Teamwork makes the dream work

A critical piece of advice was this from Chef Shenarri: “Find your people early on.”

“[When] you have ideas and you want to break into an industry, there are going to be times you have questions and you need support,” she said. “Invest in your relationships with people and your network, because you never know when you’re going to need someone later on — and that [investment] goes both ways.”

Chef Sohui spoke of the time two years ago when she was building her opening team at Gage & Tollner. She knew who she wanted as general manager, chef de cuisine and sous chef. She also knew she wanted to see the proposed compensation for these positions. Why? Because she wanted to ensure that as a business and as owners, they were able to take care of the team.

“I don’t do everything on my own,” she said. “You have to have each other’s backs, and that teamwork is crucial.”

The restaurant business, she pointed out, is more “a business about people than food.”

“If you can cook and you have passion, that’s great. It’s foundational … [but putting] forth a wonderful restaurant in all of the areas, the entire package — the great food, the great hospitality, the work culture. These,” she said, “are things that you have to put a lot of time into so that you create and sustain your work family.”

“It’s not an easy business to be in,” Chef Kathryn said, but it most certainly has its rewards.

Asked about her proudest achievement, Chef Kathryn replied: “I had a student two years ago who came to [ICE] from Korea where she was a principal. Here [in the U.S.], she was working in a chicken processing plant. She now works at Gramercy Tavern.”

“I guess that’s about as far as I can take it,” she said.

Challenging though it may be, the fruits of the hospitality industry — as clearly demonstrated by our all-star women in business panelists — are equal to, and possibly greater than, its labors.