Claire Guevreyan

Honestly, I would say how my parents raised me. I would say the work ethic - I feel like nowadays there's a lot of people with the feeling of entitlement, and so kind of humbling yourself and understanding that not everything is going to be given in the palm of your hand, that you have to work extremely hard for the things that you want, and I think that's what my parents instilled in me at a young age. My mother's French and my dad is Armenian from Lebanon, and in our household we always were cooking from scratch. I've always seen that from a young age, and my mother loves to host, and I really was intrigued that you can make such a beautiful meal and make people so happy.

The best career advice I've ever received is that not every battle is worth fighting. Sometimes you feel like you need to prove yourself, and sometimes you just need to understand you don't need to prove yourself to everyone. You need to look at the bigger picture and how you can reach that. Of course you're gonna have bumps in the road, but it's just overcoming it without having to fight every single battle in front of you. You can maybe eliminate it or resolve it in some type of way.

For women specifically, I would say to never get discouraged. You're always gonna have - not everyone's gonna like you - but to always keep pushing forward, because it's not always going to be easy. You're gonna have rough patches, but to push past those rough patches, because in the end you're gonna have this sense of gratitude that you are a woman in mostly a male-dominant industry, and yet you're still proving yourself that you can be at the same level or higher, with your skill, with your knowledge, with your work ethic. Nowadays you do see more female women chefs in the kitchen, but it's still kind of breaking the boundaries, the stigmas of having to prove yourself, or are you good enough.

Opportunities - at least with the company that I'm working with, it's such a big company, so there's always opportunities for learning different areas of food and beverage industry. For instance, I was in residential for about 2 years, and now I'm learning more of the retail side. I feel like in culinary school they teach you, you either go to a hotel or restaurant, but there's a wide variety of options that you can use to your degree, and you don't always have to be on the line. You can be in the office still involved with food and beverage. A struggle - I mean, I feel that everyone feels this at this moment - but a struggle is just, right now, if you are looking for different opportunities, maybe outside of the company that you're with, I think everyone right now is kind of staying within their jobs, so different job opportunities are a little bit more limited. If you're looking for a set schedule, or let's say you have children, your hours are limited, so depending on your lifestyle, the different job opportunities are limited.

I would say work ethic is number one, whether that's in your professional or your personal - whatever you put your mind to, reaching that goal - and honesty. Honesty in your professional work life and then in your personal life will only help you to be more successful. I truly love when you have a really great team that you can bond with. You're in the kitchen for so long, you're more in the kitchen than at home most of the time with your own family. So just having that camaraderie in the kitchen with your team, I think I really love that.