[VIDEO] Chef Shenarri Freeman, Two-Time James Beard Award Nominee, Has Thoughts on Culinary School

In the second installment in our “Culinary School to Career” video series, Chef Shenarri shares her thoughts on the value of culinary school — and she should know. Since graduating the Health-Supportive Culinary Arts program (now Health-Centered Culinary Arts) at ICE’s New York Campus, Chef Shenarri has achieved heights typically reserved for food professionals with decades of experience under their toques.

Not surprisingly, Chef Shenarri was voted “Most Likely To Succeed” by her ICE classmates — and succeed she has.

Among her awards and accolades are two magazine covers; inclusion in Forbes 30 Under 30, Esquire’s Best New Restaurants (twice), The New York Times’ Top 50 Restaurants in America  and Top 10 Restaurants in New York in 2021 (both for Cadence, where she was Executive Chef from 2021 to 2024); three Vogue articles; two magazine covers; and more TV appearances, events, popups and panels than you can shake a whisk at.

One of those panels was here at ICE, where Chef Shenarri — along with Chef Sohui Kim and ICE Chef-Instructor Kathryn Gordon — shared her insights on female entrepreneurship.

After the panel, we spoke to her one-on-one about her experience at ICE, and more specifically, how culinary school acted as a springboard for her success.

Watch the below video or read on for the insights she’s shared with us over the years — and over the course of several conversations.  

The Back Story

Let’s start with a little history (before we dive into Chef Shenarri’s thoughts on formal culinary training).

Before she decided to enroll at ICE, Chef Shenarri worked in restaurants while studying sports medicine at Howard University. Inspired by her experiences in several Washington D.C. area restaurants, among them Restaurant Marvin, Jack Rose, SongByrd and Momofuku CCDC, she relocated to attend culinary school at ICE’s NYC campus.

Special note: Two years prior to her move, she’d gone vegan and embarked on a healing journey through food that became a personal mission. “Greens” became her nickname just ahead of the time that “plant-based” became one of the buzziest expressions in food media. The timing was auspicious. 

Most Likely To Succeed

Two years after graduating ICE, she opened Cadence, a plant-based restaurant in New York’s bustling East Village that pays homage to the soul foods of her Southern heritage. Her fresh take garnered major media attention, celebrity applause (Solange Knowles dedicated an Instagram post to Cadence), and James Beard award nominations for Best Emerging Chef in 2022 and Best Chef: New York State in 2023

“Most likely to succeed,” indeed.

From ICE Classroom to Stellar Career

As to the influence formal culinary training had on her career, Chef Shenarri puts the benefits of ICE training in three buckets:

• Career Path Special Skills — “Culinary school shows you a lot of options. It touches on hospitality management, it touches on food photography, food styling, food writing, food media, journalism.
• Fundamentals Training — “Going to culinary school helped my career by teaching me a lot of the tools, techniques and fundamentals that you would need to operate a kitchen in a restaurant.”
• Hands-on Instruction — “There’s a lot of things that you’re going to learn in culinary school that you won’t learn just by working in a restaurant,” she says, adding that students “get chef-instructors in an environment where there’s a lot more patience.”

“People think [culinary school] is just come in and cook, leave, cook.” In fact, as is evidenced by the above, it’s so much more.

Thank you, Chef Shenarri, for your insights and time. We can’t wait to see what you’ll do next! 

* Experience varies by student, with outcomes contingent on factors including graduate aptitude, job market, place of residence and work history, among others.