60 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM key connections. “I got very fortunate. I had some great mentors,” he says modestly, citing prominent chefs George Marrone and Michael Mina among other local luminaries. He was George’s chef de cuisine at San Francisco’s Fifth Floor, a fine-dining powerhouse when it opened in 1999, then went to work for Michael when he was in the early stages of building his eatery empire. Joseph earned his first two Michelin stars after reopening The Restaurant at Meadowood in St. Helena, and followed up in 2018 with a star for Murray Circle at the Lodge at Cavallo Point in Sausalito. Running the newly opened resort’s large-scale dining program, from restaurants and room service to banquets for up to 800, “was a big shift for me,” he confides. So large-scale that Joseph could buy a whole cow from Skywalker Ranch (that’s right, George Lucas raised wagyu cattle on his property) and use up every ounce of it at Cavallo Point. While farm-to-table is a buzzword today, it’s an ethos Joseph embraced from the outset, crafting dishes from locally sourced and sustainable ingredients. It felt good, he says, knowing that the quantity of produce used at Cavallo Point could have a positive impact on a nearby farm. “We knew where our stuff came from,” Joseph says with pride, adding that he was the first to list the fish and the fishing vessel that caught it on his menus. He took the helm of Oak + Violet at the Park James Hotel earlier this year, and its menu bears the distinct marks of Joseph's kitchen creativity and passion for local produce. His San Francisco albacore tuna features fresh-offthe-boat fish delicately poached {food coloring}
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