Chef Jimmy Sakatos' love of cooking and food was established early in his childhood during summers spent in Cypress, Greece, with family living there. By trade, his grandfather, Hercules, was a builder, but owned an enormous clay oven that the entire village would use each Sunday before church. During this weekly ritual, the locals would drop off their Sunday dinners at his grandfather's oven for roasting, and return shortly after services to pick-up their family meals. Stealing a few bites from that clay oven became another (if secret) ritual for Sakatos and his brother.

Today, Sakatos is the Executive Chef of The Carlyle Restaurant at The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel, where he has worked since 2001 when he came onboard as the Executive Sous-Chef under Jean-Louis Dumonet. Working alongside his mentor, the young chef was instrumental to the success of the restaurant (then called dumonet at The Carlyle), which received a coveted two star review from William Grimes of The New York Times. Currently, in addition to managing a kitchen staff of 30, Chef Sakatos oversees the daily kitchen operations of the restaurant, Bemelmans Bar, Café Carlyle, hotel room service and the staff cafeteria.

Indeed, Chef Sakatos is fusing French classics, premier regional American ingredients and a few culinary surprises that recall his Greek upbringing into an exciting seasonal menu and will capture the interest and palates of diners and hotel guests. Although the restaurant's new menu is entirely a Sakatos creation, he is collaborating with another legendary chef, Christian Delouvrier (Alain Ducasse at the Essex House, Lespinasse in the St. Regis Hotel), to bring his culinary concepts to fruition. This unique "culinary mentor" relationship transcends a business relationship, as the two chefs have been friends for years, frequently seeking each other's advice and counsel.

Chef Sakatos' signature dishes often combine classic French technique and his love for America's finest regional ingredients -- a Half Maine Lobster is beautifully prepared with avocado, arugula, tomatoes and pea shoots; Seared Hudson Valley Foie Gras is served with roasted mission figs and port reduction; and the excellent and hard to find Roasted Blue Foot Chicken with Cepes arrives as it should, simply with roasted fingerling potatoes. Chef Sakatos went to great lengths to locate and acquire the Blue Foot chicken, a rare breed seldom found outside of France. 

The chef is a graduate of the French Culinary Institute and resides in New Jersey with his wife and three children.