This Dallas chef said he worked at Michelin-starred restaurants, but reps say he didn’t

When Carte Blanche opened in June 2021, the Lower Greenville Restaurant was hailed as one of Dallas’ most exciting restaurant openings. An upscale tasting menu in the evening and an eclectic pastry counter in the morning, the concept was based on the impressive resume of chef Casey La Rue, who has bragged about his work under some of the world’s most decorated chefs at Michelin-starred restaurants.

In media interviews and online resumes, La Rue said he worked in the early 2000s at Thomas Keller’s Per Se restaurant in New York, Daniel Boulud’s restaurant in New York, Ken Oringer’s Clio restaurant (since reopened as Uni) in Boston, and Joël Robuchon. in Las Vegas.

But the representatives of these restaurants said The Dallas Morning News that they have no record that La Rue ever worked for them, either as a staff employee or as a stage, unpaid intern. Chefs and staff at the four restaurant groups also said they did not recognize La Rue in the photos.

Asked about his resume and the responses from those restaurants, La Rue said The news he worked in these establishments, but that he had a different name at the time, which is why the restaurant groups have no record of his presence. He declined to provide another name or proof of employment.

La Rue provided a photo of a Dinex Group W-2 tax document, which is above Daniel’s restaurant, but the name on the document was redacted, and it was dated 2007 while the online resume de La Rue indicated that he worked there as chef de partie from February 2003 to January 2004.

“Some of them are actually confidential. It’s kind of a complicated situation that I really wouldn’t like to get into,” La Rue said. The news in 2021.

Mentions of La Rue’s employment with Per Se, Daniel, Clio and Joël Robuchon have been removed from Carte Blanche’s website and La Rue’s LinkedIn page, but references to his professed work experience have been made in next articles and award mentions, including in a biography for Carte Blanche’s recent 5 stars in the Forbes travel guide.

When The news contacted La Rue in July 2022 for clarification and proof of his professional experience, he did not respond. A message was then shared on his Instagram account which offered an explanation of his culinary background and read: “Casey started as a dishwasher and worked his way up to cooking, then after discovering a passion for it he decided to go on a mission to work and perform in as many fancy places as possible… He’s been coast to coast, places like Picholine, Daniel, Per Se, Park No. 9 and many more .

La Rue’s online resume indicated that he also worked at Fox Tavern at the Hancock Inn in New Hampshire. The owners of the inn and restaurant have confirmed The news that La Rue was working there in 2018. Online documents found by The news also show that he once spent years in the Phoenix area as a private chef and caterer.

La Rue, who came to Dallas in 2019, got his start in the city hosting small pop-up dinner parties at various restaurants and rented Airbnbs with plans to open a restaurant. In June 2021, La Rue opened Carte Blanche, where it serves its customers a prepaid tasting menu for $195 per person with the aim of becoming one of the most recognized restaurants internationally.

“If all we’ve been recognized as is the ‘Best Restaurant in Texas,’ we’re a failure,” said a Carte Blanche employee handbook for new hires.

When it opened, Carte Blanche attracted industry professionals willing to work for someone with the experience that La Rue said he had, given that Michelin does not review restaurants in Texas and that Dallas chefs with star-studded dining experience are few.

Julie Braunstein said she was delighted to work at Carte Blanche when the opportunity arose last July. The former Bullion and Veritas Wine Room sommelier felt like she was at the start of something special in the Dallas culinary scene, but her enthusiasm turned to unease days after taking the job, a- she declared.

Braunstein said what she saw at Carte Blanche was breathtaking and “nothing like what I would expect from someone who has worked in Michelin-starred restaurants.” She said she and other employees began to question La Rue’s work experience because of the lack of organization in the restaurant and the unclear tipping structure for front desk staff who made employees uncomfortable.

Don Myers, a former sommelier and general manager of Carte Blanche who worked there for several weeks after it opened, said he found the restaurant disorganized and the management confusing, leading him to wonder if La Rue had the restaurant experience. he had.

“Things didn’t work out. There were so many things that didn’t fit. So many fundamental things that haven’t been done,” Myers said. “I’ve never seen anything like it, and this is my 33rd year in the industry.”

Myers said La Rue’s resume is a personal insult to the restaurant industry, especially Dallas professionals who take pride in the city’s restaurant industry.

“In the restaurant business, what we have is our word, and we verify these things because they matter,” Myers said.

Even before La Rue opened his restaurant in Dallas, questions about his work experience arose.

Brooke Gerstein, a sommelier who previously worked at Gemma and Burgundy Swine, briefly worked for La Rue during one of her pop-up dinner parties. She said she was thrilled with the opportunity.

“Being part of something with someone who has a resume like that is a sommelier’s dream,” she says.

She quickly became suspicious and felt she had been duped when she met La Rue in person and asked him if he knew any friends of hers who also worked at Per Se at the time he said he was here. Gerstein said he told her he didn’t know any of the people she listed, and when she sent her friends photos of La Rue, they told her they didn’t know him.

“The New York restaurant scene is very small. It’s a very intimate community,” she said.

Gerstein said her suspicions about his resume were amplified by the lack of sanitary measures she saw in the kitchen, even though he appeared to be a trained chef.

“Casey La Rue is a good cook,” she said, “and I think he could have been everything he claimed to be if he had just done it the right way.”