Our Friends
John McCarthy
John is a former lawyer who left a legal career to attend the French Culinary Institute. After graduating from FCI at the top of his class, he worked for Chef Wylie Dufresne at wd-50 for several years, ultimately becoming Chef Wylie’s research and development cook. John is also a certified sake sommelier, and has spent a considerable amount of time in Asia. He lived in South Korea for three years when he was in high school, and he typically travels to Japan at least once a year to either stagiaire or travel for food and drink research and development. For the past two years, he has partnered with Chef Hiroyoshi Amano to prepare two dinners for Outstanding in the Field at the foot of Mt. Fuji for Fujisan Winery.
Magnus Albrektsson
Magnus has over 20 years experience at top restaurants in Stockholm Sweden. Restaurants include, but are not limited to, Tore Wretman’s Riche, Restaurant Leijontornet (1 star Michelin), Excecutive chef within the Rolf Kök’s empire, Head chef within F12 group and Sous Chef at Lux Stockholm (1 star Michelin).
Internationally, Magnus has also been Head chef at The Friendship Bay resort in the Caribbean and Excecutive chef at the Ms Polaris a luxury cruise liner runned by Special Expeditions NYC, USA.
Magnus is always looking for new ideas related to food. A few of his core beliefs are travel to find inspiration and explore new restaurants, meeting with other chefs in the industry, and having a close relationship with producers.