Seth Siegel-Gardner is a native Houstonian who started his culinary career at the age of 14 at Tony Mandola’s original restaurant rolling napkins. During high school and college, Seth always maintained a foothold in hospitality, doing every restaurant job, but always landing back in the kitchen as his home base. In 2003, Seth took a transformational role as a line cook at Marcus Samuelsson’s Aquavit, quickly moving to sous chef and over the next several years, helping to open several more of Marcus’ restaurants in New York and Chicago. In 2008, he opened Gordon Ramsay’s London Hotel restaurant in New York City as managing sous chef, earning two Michelin stars. In 2011, Seth spent time traveling and helped open Nuno Mendes’ Bethnel Green restaurant, Viajante and staged at Heston Blumenthal’s The Fat Duck. In 2012, Seth returned to Houston with two friends, Terrence Gallivan and Justin Yu, for a limited-run restaurant, The Just August Project, where a coursed menu changed daily, earning the team the best new restaurant in Houston that year. Houston is also where Seth and Terrence opened, owned and operated their first fine dining/casual hybrid restaurant, The Pass and Provisions, in the original Antone’s warehouse, earning them a place on Bon Appetit‘s Best New Restaurants of 2013. In 2019, after the closure of the restaurant, Seth moved to Marfa, Texas where he opened two restaurant concepts and a distillery, The Marfa Spirit Company with partners Josh Shepard and Morgan Weber, and served as Culinary Director of the Southern Smoke Foundation. Currently Seth resides in Houston with his family and is a part of the Local Foods, Eau Tour, Lees Den, and Maximo culinary team.

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