The Field Museum

About Aramark Corporation, known commonly as Aramark, is an American food service company in the sports and leisure division. In partnership with The Field Museum, Aramark provided exclusive food and beverage to the daily operations and 40k square feet of event space.

Position Executive Chef

Timeline July 2018 - January 2019

Highlights and Accomplishments My time at the Field museum stretched my creativity and capacity to reach new heights. The thought leaders of the museum understood the importance and financial gain for embracing the culinary world and creating an experiential visit—aggressive programming designed to engage tourists with food complementing the collections and exhibitions. At the same time, locals were delighted that the museum not only participated in weekly events such as Fossils & Fliks and Farmers Markets but also city-wide events. Most importantly, an avid and supportive partner to their back yard neighbors at Soliders Field home to The Chicago Bears. Through a strategic partnership with Miller Light, a tailgating community and marketing opportunity were born. Each game in front of the terrace, our team, produced a customized food and beverage menu inspired by star players, football icons and fan favorites, and of course, the rivals.

As one of the leading iconic locations touting the largest event capacities in the city, the museum was the ideal venue for many large-scale tourism initiatives as well as corporate, non-profit, and social events. My favorite event of the 2018 season was hosting the Annual BizBash Awards. The pressure to host industry peers and competitors drove our team to think outside of the box on not just the menu, but also the display and execution. The fan-favorite of the night was our smoked mushroom bao buns with kimchi and glazed pork belly with pickled carrots. While the museum was no stranger to large-scale events, being a part of the largest and most complex ever for The Field was something for the history books. Our team successfully produced an event for 1,500 + guests in five different event spaces, on three separate floors simultaneously. The strategy, logistics, and prep stretched us to our limits, but receiving rave reviews from the guests and clients made it well worth the time and effort exerted.

Memorable Menu One of the specialty themed menus we created for the Field Bistro was exhibition-focused menu on ancestral ingredients to complement the Native American exhibition. Putting a modern twist to wallflower ingredients such as corn, squash, and legumes gave visitors a new appreciation and understanding of these products. The fan-favorite was a green chile stew with bison and wild rice.