Ask most chefs what separates amateur cooking from professional technique and you’ll get answers about knife skills, heat control, or plating. Chef Jared Astrinos, executive sous chef at The Ritz-Carlton Turtle Bay, has a simpler test: “Next time you cook chicken, season it an hour earlier and tell me if it tastes different.”
It will. And that’s his point. The best cooking isn’t always about complexity or rare ingredients. It’s about knowing when to do things, not just how.
Astrinos has spent 15 years cooking on the Hawaiian islands after training in kitchens that couldn’t be more different from each other. He learned Texas-style BBQ after high school, studied South American techniques in Buenos Aires, and graduated from Le Cordon Bleu in Pasadena before moving to the islands in 2011. That path gave him technical skills across French, Italian, Spanish, and Caribbean cuisines, but it also taught him that timing matters more than most home cooks realize.
Working in Waikiki’s luxury hotels and upscale restaurants, he started incorporating locally grown tropical fruits and seasonal Hawaiian produce into dishes rooted in Mediterranean and Caribbean flavors. The combination works because he’s not forcing techniques onto ingredients that don’t suit them. He’s letting what grows here dictate the menu, then using his training to figure out the best way to prepare it.
That approach extends to his current farm-to-table initiative with Kuilima Farms. Sourcing ingredients this way means they’re fresher, but it also means adapting to what’s actually in season rather than relying on a static menu. It’s a constraint that forces better cooking, not limits it. When a particular green or herb is ready, you build around it. When tropical fruits hit their peak, they become the center of the plate instead of a garnish. It’s the opposite of ordering from a distributor and making the same dishes year-round. The menu has to be more responsive, which means the cooking has to be more thoughtful.
When he’s training new line cooks, the lessons are practical. Portion control and meeting food costs matter at a luxury resort, but so does understanding why certain steps can’t be rushed. Letting meat rest, seasoning in advance, knowing when to pull something off heat before it looks done. These aren’t complicated techniques, but they’re the difference between food that’s technically correct and food that actually tastes better.
Astrinos has been cooking since he was a kid and can’t imagine doing anything else. That longevity comes through in how he talks about food. There’s no pretense, just a clear understanding that the small adjustments most people skip are what separate decent cooking from something memorable.
“Luxury food doesn’t need luxury ingredients. It needs respect and restraint,” he says. That philosophy shows up in everything he makes. You don’t need expensive proteins or complicated preparations to cook something exceptional. You just need to know what you’re doing and care enough to time it right.
For more on Chef Jared Astrinos’s work, visit his Instagram or connect on LinkedIn.
