Sean Spalding
Areas Of Specialty
Sean Spalding joined Goodwin Recruiting in March 2021.
He has been working since his childhood, with his first regular paycheck stemming from a dishwasher job at the age of 14. He got a better-paying dishwasher job a year later and learned to navigate a college dining hall kitchen on the campus of Notre Dame. Moving into various categories of food prep, menu input, and some line cooking, the seeds of the future were set. Those seeds took years to germinate, as Sean ventured into different professional jobs.
After nearly 10 years as an area operations manager with Coca-Cola, Sean accepted a severance package and turned back to the kitchen. He attended Johnson & Wales University in Denver, CO, graduated at the top of his class, worked for esteemed Best New Food & Wine Chef, Bryan Moscatello, at Adega. With much tenacity (and begging), Sean received acceptance to work as a fledgling cook with the Thomas Keller Restaurant Group in Yountville, CA. Sean and his wife Jenny sold their Denver home for Sean to follow his culinary dream.
Coming in as a commis at Bouchon shucking oysters, Sean worked his way up the ranks through garde manger, pastry, line cook, eventually promoted to chef de cuisine of the Bouchon Bakery’s savory offerings while managing BOH staff and acted as a production chef for the consuming items for Bouchon Bistro and The French Laundry.
In a twist of fate, a former pastry intern reached out to Sean about an opportunity with the Michelin Guide, creating a guide for San Francisco. Sean landed that dream job and traveled the world and the US for the past 14 years before Covid forced a change and Sean excitedly joined Goodwin Recruiting.
