Sous Chef Series: Lauren DeSteno’s Spanish Potato Salad

“In my Italian-Spanish family,” says Marea sous chef Lauren DeSteno, “food was the center of everything.” So it came as little surprise to her parents when, after studying finance and Spanish at Fairfield University in Connecticut, DeSteno decided to attend the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York.

She launched her career at the Four Seasons in Palm Beach, Florida, then took a position at Manhattan’s lauded Eleven Madison Park before joining the opening team of Michael White’s seafood-centric Marea, also in Manhattan.

The New Jersey native, who admits to a love of Bruce Springsteen, spent a semester studying abroad in Seville, Spain. During that time, she lived with an old woman who had hosted dozens of traveling students over the years and who introduced her to the joy of a potato salad made with superlative olive oil-packed tuna. “It was all about good ingredients,” says DeSteno.

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