Hugh Amano
Founder, Amano Culinary
I love food and cooking, and I find it incredibly rewarding to share that love with others. Happily, I've been able to fulfill that passion and hone my craft through my work as a chef and writer over the past 2 decades.
Early on, before I knew that food and cooking was my calling, I worked the standard restaurant jobs while in college at The University of Colorado getting my English Degree: scooping muffins at a small bakery here, bussing tables at an Italian restaurant there. I was the guy in my group of friends that always cooked for everyone else, and I loved it. But I never saw food and cooking as a career path.
Likewise, I didn’t really stumble onto a love of writing until realizing that the first couple majors I selected in my early college career (kinesiology, psychology) weren’t really for me. Luckily, I had a class with a great professor that flipped the writing switch for me, and I was hooked. Rounding the English major out with a minor in Film Studies sealed it for me: I love not just creating narratives, but looking for ones that exist in everyday life that merely require a glance, an open mind, a curious spirit.
But just how does one turn that into a meaningful career? I have a sharp editorial eye, and a scary attention to detail (shouldn’t all chefs?), but never cared about calling out prepositions and past participles, and can, at times, “pispronunciate me worms.”
Enter the world of food. After a stint teaching in underserved neighborhoods through AmeriCorps, and one producing web-based training, I realized the typical English degree jobs weren’t for me. But the love of food was still there. So, I enrolled at New England Culinary Institute in Montpelier, VT, and graduated with honors in 2005.
After graduation, I worked in Atlanta, GA as a line cook on a tight-knit crew at a now-closed super hip restaurant called The Food Studio, a kitchen that served as a bit of a chef factory, most of that crew moving on to great things. I also spent a bit of time learning the tricks of the TV trade while working on the television show Good Eats with the legendary Alton Brown.
Moving on to Chicago, I spent several years as a chef at a couple restaurants before diving into culinary instruction at a recreational cooking school—it was here that I found my voice, learning how to talk to people about food rather than just prepare it for them.
But what about writing? I’d been neglecting it. But a good friend encouraged me to fire it back up. To start a blog about food, if only to keep my culinary mind sharp and reconnect with writing. It was some of the best advice I’ve ever gotten; it did all that and more. It was enough of a hook to expand my circle to food writers and others interested in my ability to tell stories around food, and ultimately, led to me co-authoring my first cookbook, The Adventures of Fat Rice (Ten Speed Press 2016) after helping to build and open its namesake restaurant that would go on to be featured on Bon Appetit’s “Best New Restaurant” list soon thereafter.
From that first fortunate foot in the door, I was able to get a few more opportunities, writing Let's Make Ramen! (Ten Speed Press 2019), Let's Make Dumplings! (Ten Speed Press 2021), and co-authoring Down South + East (Abrams Books 2026). Along the way, I launched a culinary journal, Bon Vivant, of which seven issues were produced, each covering a single culinary topic as the team and I traveled around North America cooking and eating with people that aren’t always in the spotlight.
All the while, I actively managed kitchens in Chicago, cheffing in spots from hotel restaurants (South Water Kitchen) to crunchier places with certified organic rooftop farms (Uncommon Ground), all the while staging in other restaurants to keep my skills sharp, see how other chefs operated, and expose myself to other kitchen setups.
Perhaps two places I worked had the biggest influence on me to date, though. For a dozen years, I worked as a private chef for a company in Chicago, where I not only cooked a different menu (solo) every day for 100+ people, but I also consulted on the design and buildout of three of my own commercial kitchens, maximizing limited space and creating efficiencies that allowed me to cook for and serve so many people as a solitary chef. During this time, I assisted in the redesign of the commercial kitchen of a luxury resort in Utah, a bar and restaurant in Idaho, and a few home kitchens in Chicago.
And now? After so many years in the hustle-bustle of kitchens (and Chicago), my wife and I wanted to slow things down, and we relocated to Bozeman, Montana. Here, I’m focusing on new writing projects, and I’ve started Amano Culinary, which offers residential and commercial kitchen design consulting services, as well as restaurant consulting services. And despite my new, self-assigned title of “recovering chef,” I still scout the endless world of food for flavors new and familiar, challenging and comforting as I cook for family and friends.