We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Dayne Womax. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Dayne below.
Dayne, appreciate you joining us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
I started off cooking at home with my mother and grandmother.
Getting into adulthood, my twin brother and I were in a touring rock band and needed jobs that we could jump into between touring schedules. The culinary industry fit the bill and we started out in commercial kitchens learning the craft.
After many years working my way up in many great restaurant kitchens, I started my own business and a speakeasy supper club that was a hit. This caught the attention of some good investors which allowed me the opportunity to open up my own award winning restaurant in 2014.
After nine years in business we were forced to close my restaurant’s doors in 2023.
The Rizzuto family took me in and I’ve been with them ever since. Running their Lakeview location kitchen and now opening up the new high end steakhouse and seafood concept in the Hyatt Regency Hotel in New Orleans.
Dayne, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Cooking professionally for almost 28 years now, my background is in high end southern food. Using southern ingredients and techniques to implement creative variations and menus that sometimes cross cultural lines.
Having worked at some great concepts I was able sharpen my skills in many world and regional cuisines as well.
After opening my own restaurant serving contemporary southern food, the restaurant had multiple national awards and television spots as well as local accolades.
Taking what I have worked on and learned in the past I was able to bring a new perspective to the way I approached the classic Italian menu at my new professional home at the Rizzuto Restaurant Group.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
The most rewarding aspect of my career is creating food and drinks that make people smile. Sometimes it’s a whimsical take on a classic or just the comfort of a nostalgic dish that can put the “feels” in a guest and make them remember that experience.
Have you ever had to pivot?
During the pandemic, my restaurant suffered as many have and lost most of our staff. Trying to navigate in a locked down world we knew we had to make pivotal decisions to keep going. We shifted focus to take out and family style catering. Doing a different regional or world cuisine menu every week during the lock down. This was a hit and we survived through the lockdown and started to bounce back once we reopened to fulls service.
Image Credits
Dayne Womax