FLORIDA
John Beriker Takes the Helm at Baleen Naples, Bringing Global Clout to a Rebuilding Icon
Written by Eric Barton | June 27, 2025
AUTHOR BIO: Eric Barton is editor of The Adventurist and a freelance journalist who has reviewed restaurants for more than two decades. Email him here.
Baleen in Naples has always been the kind of place where the grouper with a champagne citrus beurre blanc just might be good enough to make you miss the sun dipping below the Gulf waters right past your table. The signature restaurant at LaPlaya Beach & Golf Resort, it’s also a place that had to rebuild after Hurricane Ian sent storm surge through the ground floor and left its future in question.
That makes the arrival of chef John Beriker all the more symbolic: a comeback story in chef’s whites. He’s now Baleen’s executive chef, arriving with decades of experience and more stamps in his passport than a customs agent. Beriker is here to do more than run a kitchen—he’s here to help reset the table entirely.
Beriker, above, comes with a résumé that reads like the fantasy career of a Travel Channel host: five-star resorts in Guam, Sydney, and Hamburg; stints under Wolfgang Puck and Martin Yan; and a cookbook to boot. His most recent posts include kitchens in Singapore and Bangkok, where he earned awards for fine dining French restaurants in cities that are notoriously hard to impress.
And now? Naples. Southwest Florida. But as LaPlaya reclaims its place as a luxury mainstay—fully reopening this year after more than $30 million in repairs—Beriker might just be the guy to help them pull it off.
The chef hasn’t revealed the new menu yet, but don’t expect safe. Beriker built his reputation on genre-bending, globally inspired fine dining—elevated but not fussy, bold but not overthought. The challenge at Baleen will be to match that ambition to a view that, even post-storm, remains as cinematic as ever.
As the Gulf laps against the sand and servers deliver chilled rosé to linen-clad vacationers, there’s a sense that Naples isn’t just recovering. It’s evolving. And if Beriker has anything to say about it, your next beachside meal might involve Thai basil foam or black garlic aioli—and you’ll like it, even if you can’t pronounce it.
