Meet Everett Sutton

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Everett Sutton a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Everett, thank you so much for taking the time to share your lessons learned with us and we’re sure your wisdom will help many. So, one question that comes up often and that we’re hoping you can shed some light on is keeping creativity alive over long stretches – how do you keep your creativity alive?

Creativity isn’t created in the restaurant itself. It’s created through repetition—in your own style and your own kitchen. I was experimenting with my own recipes and ideas every single day.

On the days I worked, I would constantly think about new ideas so that, when I had a day off, I could spend it cooking. Eventually, I started to run out of inspiration—even after looking online. It really bothered me because all I wanted to do was cook. I didn’t enjoy doing anything else.

But I also realized I needed to take a break. So, I’d take a couple of days off, not think about ideas, and just avoid cooking altogether. Of course, the internet was still full of inspiration, but I hadn’t truly created a dish in my journal based on those ideas.

This was a mix of burnout and a loss of creativity. But even when that happened, I came back better than ever—with fresh ideas!

If you asked me, “How do you keep your creativity alive?” I’d say: Sometimes I take a break and focus on something else for a little while. Then I come back better than ever.

It’s okay to take half a day off!

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I started working at 16 years old. It wasn’t in a kitchen, it was at a golf course. I was a kid who loved golf and dreamed of becoming a professional golfer. That dream felt feasible at the time.

It wasn’t until my junior year of high school that I started to realize I wasn’t going to be able to make that dream come true. I began looking at other options. I still worked at the golf course, but I started brainstorming other careers I could pursue.

I knew I loved food. I loved food and I also loved making people happy. After much deliberation, I told myself I needed to get moving and start working toward a new goal. I started looking for jobs in the kitchen.

Luckily, one of my family friends knew someone who owned a restaurant. It was perfect: a fine dining French restaurant with incredible reviews, Bistro Nautile. I got in touch with the owner and scheduled an interview with both the front-of-house manager, Kat Reeves, and the executive chef, Ryan Damasky. Since it was a small restaurant, he also managed the back of house.

And just like that, I started the next week. I was so scared, I had no clue what I was getting myself into. But I showed up and tried my absolute hardest to learn and grow. Like many young cooks, I started in the dish pit. I worked there every day and was eventually trained to shuck oysters. After a while, I primarily worked on oysters and the Garde Manger station.

During my time at Bistro Nautile, they hosted private dinners with multi-course menus and limited seating. Those service days were so much fun. Even though I wasn’t good enough to be the executive chef’s right-hand person yet, I still felt like I was in the right place.

Eventually, the owners of Bistro Nautile opened a brunch and dinner restaurant. I became a line cook and worked my way up to chef de partie, opening and closing the restaurant. I was working 12-hour shifts while still in high school. I worked about 30 hours a week.

I loved every minute of working in the kitchen: the intensity, the heat, the pressure, the skill, the art, and even the calm moments. It all made me so happy. I decided to leave the golf course and focus entirely on my career as a cook.

At this point, I knew I wanted to go to culinary school after high school. So I worked. I trained and learned every single day—asking questions and trying to understand everything a kitchen had to offer. I worked so much that my parents suggested I cut back my hours or I wouldn’t have a senior year. They were worried I’d burn out. But I couldn’t stop—I was obsessed.

Seeing people online create art installations on a plate inspired me even more.

Fast forward to graduation: I finished high school knowing exactly what I wanted to do. After a quick summer break, I jumped into culinary school.

My parents wanted to celebrate my high school graduation and culinary success, so they took me to Ocean Prime. The experience amazed me. I was so impressed I wanted to meet the chef and ask if he had any openings.

I got the chef’s card. After a very pleasant evening with my parents and the incredible staff at Ocean Prime on Larimer Square, I sent the chef a thank-you message along with my résumé.

For the first 12 weeks of culinary school, I didn’t have a job due to the tough job market at the time. Weeks went by without a response from Ocean Prime. But one day, I got an email from the chef. He had looked up my name on a chef advisory board and saw I was listed, and his culinary advisor had nothing but good things to say about me and my work.

At first, he didn’t have any kitchen positions available, so I worked at the host stand. I wasn’t upset, I wanted to understand the front of house too. I worked hard to learn and eventually got into the kitchen, where I’ve been ever since.

I’m now trained on multiple stations and plan to go to Norway to work at a Michelin-starred restaurant called Savage in August of 2025 for my externship.

I am so thankful for the coaching and guidance I have received from the staff at Bistro Nautile and Ocean Prime so early in my career. They have helped me start out on the right path and get me to where I am today.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

How about all 3:

Important qualities:
1. Good work ethic
2. Understanding of produce and produce identification
3. Good with instruction

Important skills:
1. Understanding of both sanitation and knives and the cuts within them
2. Ability to multitask
3. Creative

Areas of knowledge:
1. Understand this is a very hard industry. You will be working and missing most holidays and events
2. Hard work is everything! If you don’t do your job well and to the best of your ability the guests don’t eat well.
3. You will he in a very hot kitchen and have few breaks if any especially during service. You need to be able to work past what you thought was your breaking point, take the protective gear seriously, so wear non slip shoes, pants, and anything to keep your hair out of your face if needed.
4. You will never have better friends than your kitchen staff. They will do anything for you and will always help you.
5. Don’t be afraid to ask for help!

Alright so to wrap up, who deserves credit for helping you overcome challenges or build some of the essential skills you’ve needed?

This question has several answers that are all equally important to my success. But the first answer I’m gonna give you is myself. You are the biggest obstacle and critic of your work. I have seen the best and worst of my own critic and it have helped me understand more about my craft and my style of art. I spend most of my time learning and trying to become better either it was from actually cooking the technique or watching online seeing how people are using this ingredient or technique. You are going to make the biggest impact on your learning. Another very big impact on my development was Chef Ryan Damasky. He gave me the opportunity to work in his kitchen and learn under him. I was taught everything from multitasking to how to clean a kitchen! Even gave me books to read about cooking and this industry. He helped me develop the basic skills that I was going to learn in culinary school and wanted to get me a very big step forward into the kitchen so I understood what I was getting myself into and what it was going to take. He supported me so much but at the same time he told me what I needed to hear when the time came to it. He and I still talk to this day and i still ask him questions about food and a dish I have an idea on! He is the best chef in Fort Collins and if I had to recommend 1 place for someone to visit I would without hesitation say Bistro Nautile.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: edsutts
• Facebook: Everett Sutton
• Youtube: @Everettsuttoncooking
• Other: https://gronda.link/hU8LRsu8rQb
  

  @edsutts2

Image Credits

Jennifer Sutton Brieva

Kat Reeves