Fine dining and fine-tuning your career with Grace Restaurant owner Jason Lutzk

August 1, 2024

Jason Lutzk is chef and owner of Grace Restaurant in Pass-a-Grille Beach. He’s professionally trained in classical French, Modern American, Mediterranean, South American and Italian cuisine and pastries. A Tampa Bay native, he’s also worked at 400 Beach in St. Petersburg, Ponte Modern American in Tampa with James Beard nominee Chris Ponte and was Sous Chef and Pastry Chef with James Beard nominee Chef Steven Oakley at Oakleys Bistro in Indianapolis.

Together, we talk about Jason’s career trajectory and one of his proudest moments: that he went back to school and earned degrees from the University of Tampa and Culinary Institute of America after some struggles early on. We also talk about dealing with the pressure to be creative as a chef, some of the biggest challenges in the restaurant business today and what cooking shows like Top Chef get right — and wrong.

3 Takeaways

(04:10) Running a business is about being part of a team
(05:20) Communicating under pressure is key in a kitchen
(13:45) Cross utilize your resources

Timestamps

(00:00) This episode is sponsored by Kerkering Barberio
(00:20) Introducing Chef Jason Lutzk and Grace Restaurant
(01:35) How Jason got into restaurants
(04:00) What have you learned about running businesses from others?
(05:10) What characteristics do you look for in leaders?
(06:00) What is the best part of being a leader?
(07:25) What is the most challenging part of being a leader?
(08:00) Best leadership advice you've received?
(09:20) Failures you learned from?
(10:45) Is Top Chef realistic?
(13:30) How do you address challenges of cost increases?
(15:15) Wages in restaurants
(17:40) What is your day to day?
(19:50) Rapid Fire Questions

Join us every week as we interview business leaders to learn what makes them great, what they look for in growing leaders and much more.