Michelin-star and luxury hospitality
Executive kitchens where precision, prep rhythm, and standards had to hold every night, without exception.
Meet the founder
An operator,
turned advisor.
Damian Zedower spent more than thirty years as an executive chef and operations leader before Best Practice Culinary began. The advisory work grew out of what owners kept asking for: the same judgment, without the full-time role.
The perspective
How a chef becomes the advisor owners call.
Damian's career began on the line and moved through Michelin-star kitchens, luxury hospitality, executive leadership, and multi-unit operations. Along the way came openings, commissaries, production kitchens, capacity planning, and the quieter infrastructure that lets a growing business cook consistently at scale.
The advisory work started informally. Owners with successful concepts kept asking the same thing: how do we run this well at the next location, with a bigger team, without the founder in the middle of every decision? Best Practice Culinary is the answer to that question, offered outside the full-time role.
The value isn't prestige. It is knowing which solutions survive real service, real labor constraints, and real cost pressure — and which ones only look good on paper.
Where the perspective comes from
Nearly every kind of food operation.
Not a chronology. A set of settings that shaped the same judgment from different angles.
Fast casual and multi-unit growth
Operations that repeat across locations without losing the thread — the discipline of scaling from one to many.
Commissaries and production
Volume, throughput, and the quiet infrastructure that lets a growing group cook consistently at scale.
Openings and executive leadership
New concepts, new teams, and the routines that hold a business together long after opening week.
How the practice runs
Four commitments.
01
Advice from someone who ran it
Every recommendation comes from having stood in the same position — on the line, at the pass, in the office, and in front of a team on opening night. Nothing here is invented at a whiteboard.
02
Independent by design
No brand partnerships, no vendor kickbacks. Recommendations are made against the operation, not against a sponsor list.
03
Written, not spoken
Standards, checklists, and routines are documented so the operation depends on the system, not on one experienced employee.
04
One conversation at a time
A small book of clients, with full attention on each. When capacity is full, we say so.
Start with the operation
A short conversation is usually enough.
Thirty minutes to talk through where the business is today, where decisions still depend on the owner, and what would need to become repeatable next.