Shaun Hergatt, the executive chef at ESquared Hospitality, comes to New York from the land down under.
With an endless list of accomplishments and awards under his belt, Hergatt is set to open Juni, a fine-dining restaurant in Midtown, this spring.
He grew up in Cairns, Australia, surrounded by passionate and professional cooking by way of his Scandinavian grandmother and his father, who Hergatt observed in the kitchen.
“It sounds cliche, but I knew I wanted to be a chef from a very young age,” Hergatt says.
When he was 17, he pursued a four-year apprenticeship at a fine-dining restaurant in Cairns that trained him in classic French cooking.
After winning countless competitions, he moved to Sydney; a few years later, he became the Chef de Cuisine of The Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton, Sydney.
Hergatt moved to the U.S. in 2003 and after a brief stint in both Washington, D.C., and Boston, and he became the executive sous chef of Atelier at The Ritz-Carlton, Central Park.
Hergatt promises that the experience at his new restaurant, which boasts only 55 seats, will be “extremely boutique.”
“Juni is a compilation of my 21 years of cooking,” he says.
Hergatt spent a lot of time at local farms collecting ideas for his new project. The restaurant will be very vegetable-centric, without being a vegetarian restaurant. Hergatt wants to use fresh ingredients that are in season.
“If we’re in the middle of summer and strawberries are at their peak, we’ll incorporate strawberries throughout the menu,” he says. “I want to use products for their beauty and not manipulate them.”
Australian vs. American food
From his experience, Hergatt says both Australians and New Yorkers appreciate good eats.
“The one thing about Australia is that it’s very organic,” he says. “The food there is very healthy. America is now changing its mind. The way people are looking at food here is changing. They want to know the origin of their food.” Another major difference? Hergatt says Australians eat more veggies and less protein. “America is obsessed with steak,” he says.
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