Today we’d like to introduce you to Ashley Cunha.
Hi, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Hi! Happy to be here. Thank you for having me. 10 years ago, I was looking for an externship for school, and I found Stone Creek Inn in Long Island, where I’m from. I worked under Christian Mirr and learned absolutely everything you can learn, not just about the kitchen but about the front of the house and restaurant operations in general. After about three years, I moved to New York City and started working at Le Bernardin.
From there, I went to work at The Modern, but I wanted to work in the Front of House as I was intrigued by Danny Myers’s ‘Setting the Table,’ and I wanted to see what it was all about. During those three years in the city, I lost three people very close to me which changed everything about who I was. I was at a low point in my life, and my lease was up, so I decided to leave.
On March 1, 2020, I headed down to South Carolina to see my family, and soon after, the pandemic started. Spending uninterrupted time with my family for those two months was crucial to my mental health and well-being. We spent so much time outside, fishing, gardening – essentially getting to do all the things I’d want to do if I wasn’t working or living in a city stuck in an apartment alone for a couple of months. There were six of us in a small house, but we each had a designated day every week to cook. It was a rewarding outlet for me to grab stuff from the garden and cook it during my day. Then, I found FARM, and now I get to do that every day as my full-time job, which I’m grateful for.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I’ve always worked with high-quality products, but it’s something special to get the abundance of produce we have available here. It’s a good challenge for our team to constantly change and flow with what the farmers are offering us each week.
My journey at FARM and the last 10 years of my career have been challenging, but there’s no growth without that. Stepping into the Chef de Cuisine position has been the most rewarding yet challenging thing for me. It’s so important to me that my team wants to be here. Currently, we are a team of six people, so it’s essential that everyone is committed to each other and what we do daily here to be successful together. I want them to have a safe space, a place where they can grow into the chefs they want to be, whether staying here or utilizing us as a steppingstone for their future endeavors. Balancing that aspect of the job and everything else that goes into helping run a successful restaurant and business has given me a lot of patience. It has helped me keep in check with the important things in life.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Everyone that works at FARM has their own lives and personal situations to deal with, but every day, they come in to help us succeed. It’s important to me to respect that. When you work in a high-pressure restaurant, that often gets lost. It’s not uncommon for people to lose their passion for cooking after working at stressful places as chefs. We’ve all been battered and bruised by the industry in one way or another, so it’s crucial to me at FARM that we are supportive in helping revive people’s passion for cooking. We get to look out into the dining room every night to see and hear our guests enjoying themselves. It truly helps us keep doing what we do. People walk by thanking us for their experience and telling us how good everything was. Everyone gets to have that feeling of accomplishment every night.
Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
My success at FARM is because of my team. I would not be able to do this without their dedication and support. Every day, no matter where I’m at in my journey, I show up for them because they always show up for me. Being able to help support them and watch them grind it out and grow every single day is what brings me happiness. Being a support system for my team inside and outside of work is a great feeling.
Contact Information:
- Instagram: @farmbluffton + @ashleycunha
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