I sit and talk with Chef Julio Morales and talk about his time in the foodservice industry and what keeps him going.

Chef Julio started working in restaurants when he was 15 as a dishwasher for a summer job. He was immediately enamored with the buzz, the push, and the kind of late-night life that came with it. He bounced around between 3 restaurants doing part-time cooking before he fell into an actual chef-driven kitchen job at Medure, and it flipped his perspective on things. He wanted to be a chef and he pushed for it.

That’s about the time Chef Julio came across Marco Pierre White’s book, Sex Drugs and The Making of A Great Chef. After reading it, he knew he had to be in a Michelin star kitchen to actually push himself to achieve the goal he set out for. He eventually ended up in Chicago, staging at any star restaurant that would take him with his amateurish Florida resume with a fish fry and flatbread concepts, but he ended up at TRU for about 2 years.... then he felt he needed a break so he took a cook job at the Ritz Carlton hotel Chicago but felt he overstayed. Hotels weren’t for him. Chef Julio got the opportunity to join Smyth and the Loyalist’s opening team quickly put in his notice and started there as the opening garde manger cook. With dedication and hard work, he ended up as the Chef de Cuisine for John Shields for just shy of four years. Covid hit. At that point, he had to part ways and now is on his way to open a new restaurant for a new restaurant group in Tampa Florida with some really great people. He credits his cooking style and career specifically to Chicago’s food scene and the life he’s lived here. Without it, he probably wouldn’t have the opportunities that came and has now. It’s been a good 10 years.