From Lawyer to Private Sailboat Chef: Meet ICE Alumna Leslie Lipton
Leslie Lipton had just closed her family law office when she saw a sign — a literal sign announcing ICE’s new campus — and said "to hell with it, I’m gonna' go."
That decision changed her life.
"I was a little older, but I found my niche," she says. "You can take your culinary education and your experience and morph it into something good for you.”
After graduating from law school, Chef Leslie joined her mother’s law practice. She spent decades specializing in immigration law, but the small family business that had grown to comprise two offices experienced an abrupt downturn when laws changed after September 11th.
In the mid-2010s Leslie realized it was time to close the last remaining law office.
“It got to the point that, if you were an honest lawyer, you couldn’t even help anyone," she says. "The bills were far exceeding any money that I would be making — it was no longer a viable business.”
As Chef Leslie strolled her lower Manhattan neighborhood contemplating what to do next, fate offered a helping hand.
"I walked home from the office one day and I saw a ‘Coming Soon: Institute of Culinary Education’ sign in Brookfield Place, and I thought, ‘Ooooh I want to go there,'" she says, adding, "I’ve always wanted to go to culinary school."
Soon, she was clad in chef whites and standing beside students of all ages in her ICE kitchen classroom.
“It was me and another guy in our 50s — it felt like everyone else was in their 20s, but we did it anyway," she says. "I had a great time in school, and I still keep in touch with the majority of people in my class. We swap recipes, or we think of something that happened in school and text each other silly things…the experience itself was so much fun, and you meet such great people."
Beyond the enjoyment of her classmates, Chef Leslie's time in culinary school prepared her for an entirely new career and, unbeknownst to her, provided a preview of the "dream job" she would eventually land as Executive Chef and Catering Administrator for Manhattan by Sail.
“I have fond memories of being at ICE and looking out the window [to the marina] and watching the boats go out at six o’clock, right as I was starting class," she says. "And here I am, working on the boat."
Between school and her current role, Chef Leslie gained experience in kitchens throughout New York City. Her favorite was the externship her Career Services advisor helped set up at The Peninsula Hotel, a five-star New York institution.
"It was really hard, seven in the morning until seven at night, three days per week," she says. "But I learned an incredible amount there, and I still use the things I learned today. How beautiful their [plating] was — I make my plates [just] as beautiful. I was in love with working in a five-star hotel.”
Post-externship, Chef Leslie honed her skills at Danny Meyer’s Blue Smoke, Mario Carbone’s Parm, the Condé Nast Cafe and the IPIC Theatre, a luxury dining and entertainment venue in the South Street Seaport.
Chef Leslie eventually found herself working for high-end catering company Olivier Cheng.
"We worked fancy events. I did The MET gala a bunch of times, things like that, and it was good," she says, noting that she could make the same money in two gigs that she'd make in two weeks elsewhere.
Like many in the hospitality industry, Chef Leslie was out of a job when the COVID-19 pandemic hit — but she didn't sit idly by. Instead, she used her downtime to put her experience and recipes to paper, and published "The NYC Quarantine Cookbook," which she describes as "funny, and a little off-color."
When lockdown ended, Chef Leslie was thrilled to return to her usual haunts, including sunset sails on the local chartered sailboat "The Shearwater." It was on one such sail around Manhattan that the next chapter of Chef Leslie’s life and professional career began.
"I’d been going on the boat for years since it docks so close to my condo, and [I] had made friends with the owner, Tom," she says. "So we’re on that first sail back and Tom said, 'I need a caterer to do the private charters, wine and cheese sails, that kind of stuff. You’re a chef now, do you want to do it?' and I just said ‘Yes. That would be a dream.'"
Chef Leslie and the captains collaborated to make what she describes as a sailboat-friendly menu.
"No sauces, no things like sesame seeds, berries, the kind of stuff that falls on the deck and makes a mess," she says.
The menu, enhanced by Chef Leslie’s presentation skills, was an instant success, and by the time the second boat, "Clipper City," was back in the water, demand for Chef Leslie's services had increased — so much so, in fact, that, that she required support.
She interviewed several catering companies, hired one, then shifted from Executive Chef to Catering Administrator, a role wherein she oversees the menus and foodservice executed by the caterers for all Manhattan by Sail charters.
While her position is now more managerial, she remains intimately involved in the day-to-day needs of both boats. "Instead of 'Yes, Chef,' it’s 'Yes, Captain,'" she says.
When asked what advice she would give to anyone thinking of changing careers and attending culinary school, Chef Leslie doesn't hesitate.
"Do it," she says. "Chase your dream. I took out a home equity loan on my condo, and I would do it again if I had to. When people ask me, 'You quit law and now you’re a chef on a sailboat?' I’m like, 'Yeah, [and] you can put that on my gravestone. I’m proud of it — it’s the dream of my life."
