Skift Take
Gone are the days of the stodgy hotel restaurant. Now, restaurants within hotels play an integral role in the vibe, business model, and guest experience. There's also plenty of room to affect real change.
On Monday, September 24, Skift Table hosted its first ever Skift Restaurants Forum.
The day-long event featured interviews with restaurateurs, technology leaders, operators, and chefs, as well as an audience of over 300 people from across the restaurant industry.
As the creative director of food and culture for Standard International, the company behind Standard Hotels and Bunkhouse Hotels, accomplished chef Angela Dimayuga is charting new territory.
In her new role, the James Beard-nominated chef who made her name as the executive chef of Mission Chinese Food isn’t just overseeing what’s coming out of the kitchens at the various Standard hotels around the world — she’s also been tasked with transforming the hotels’ cultural programming. And to do so, Dimayuga is drawing heavily on food, music, art, and activism.
Dimayuga was interviewed by Deanna Ting, Senior Hospitality Editor for Skift.
Read More Recaps and Interview Transcripts From Skift Restaurants Forum
Skift Table: There are some people out there, who strongly believe that food, and politics should never mix. I know one of your mentors, Anthony Bourdain, often said that there's nothing more political than food. I think it's very clear that you feel the same way. What is it that you hope to do with this connection between food, art, and politics, to really spearhead activism in your new role?
Angela Dimayuga: Thinking about politics with food is a very personal journey for me. I think that when I was working as an executive chef at Mission Chinese, I was building my name, building signature dishes, and building a following.
I realized, along the way, when I started to speak about who I am, there was larger interest on why I'm making this food. Then, I personally had more interest in speaking about my own personal-identity politics, what it feels like in the chef world, or to be cooking like the person I am, because I wanted to be a chef, ever since I was a kid, and never really saw chefs like me, growing up.
I think that what I realized was that personal connection, and speaking about who I am made the work a lot more meaningful, and purposeful for me, individually. I can't really speak to how other people could do it, but for me, that's when it became a lot more meaningful, just speaking about being Filipino-American, or the child of immigrants. Also, my sexual identity, identifying as queer, and ...
All of that just made me feel like I could do a lot more, because then,
