ORLANDO

Orlando Became a Dining Destination—Meet the Six Chefs Behind It

By Eric Barton | Aug. 31, 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.

There was a time when Orlando dining meant dinner theaters, chicken tenders on International Drive, and celebrity chefs whose names were licensed more than their recipes. That time is over.

In the past decade, a group of local chefs has built something very different here: a dining culture rooted in real kitchens, run by people who are pushing the city to be more ambitious, more diverse, and a whole lot tastier.

So we went in search of the most influential chefs working in Orlando right now, and there was no shortage of contenders. Out of many we could have chosen, these six stood out for the ways they’re shaping kitchens across the city, inspiring younger chefs, and leading a restaurant revolution that has turned Orlando into a genuine dining destination.

These are the six most influential Orlando chefs of today.

Sue and Jason Chin Most Influential Orlando Chefs

Sue Chin

Good Salt Restaurant Group

Sue Chin’s restaurants—Seito Sushi, The Osprey, Reyes Mezcaleria, The Monroe—are everywhere in Orlando, and that’s no accident. She serves as co-founder and creative director of Good Salt Restaurant Group along with her husband Jason, who is Good Salt’s chef and restaurateur. Sue Chin has been just as responsible as anyone for proving that Orlando can sustain chef-driven dining across neighborhoods, cuisines, and concepts. She and her husband were named James Beard finalists in 2025 for Outstanding Restaurateur, putting them in the national spotlight. Chin is often the behind-the-scenes operator, but in a city that’s finally earning its place on a national stage, her influence has been impossible to miss.

Trina Gregory

Se7en Bites

Nobody leaves Se7en Bites hungry, but that’s not the only reason Trina Gregory’s bakery-café has become a cult institution. Her Southern-inspired breakfasts, fried chicken, and pies stuffed with everything from bourbon chocolate pecans to banana cream have put the Milk District on the national food map. She’s appeared on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives and snagged a Bib Gourmand nod from Michelin, proof that her mix of comfort food and attitude resonates far beyond Central Florida. Gregory has done more than just feed Orlando; she’s given it a spot where the food feels inseparable from the city’s character.

Lordfer “Lo” Lalicon

Kaya

Kaya isn’t just a restaurant; it’s a love letter to Filipino food, filtered through the lens of Central Florida farms. Lordfer “Lo” Lalicon opened it with a mission to prove that the flavors of his childhood—tangy sinigang broth, smoky inihaw, the salty kick of bagoong—belong in the same conversations as any other serious cuisine. Michelin noticed, listing Kaya in its Florida guide, and the James Beard Foundation followed, naming Lalicon a 2025 semifinalist. He’s become the city’s quiet revolutionary, showing how Orlando can expand its palate without losing its sense of place.

Henry Moso

Kabooki Sushi

If there’s one name that keeps coming up when people talk about Orlando’s rise, it’s Henry Moso. The Laotian-born chef opened Kabooki Sushi in 2013 and has since turned it into one of the city’s most acclaimed restaurants, blending Japanese technique with flourishes from Mexican and French kitchens. He’s been a James Beard semifinalist three times and a finalist in 2023, the first Orlando chef in history to get that far. Even with all the accolades, Moso is known for obsessing over the smallest details—sourcing fish directly, plating like it’s art—and for quietly plotting what’s next.

Sean “Sonny” Nguyen

Domu

At Domu, noodles aren’t just noodles. Sean “Sonny” Nguyen has turned them into an emblem of Orlando’s dining identity, where house-made ramen comes with pork belly that’s been braised into submission and a soft egg that borders on indecent. He followed it with Tori Tori, a Japanese pub that feels like it was air-lifted from Tokyo’s Golden Gai, and Phat Ash Bakes, which he co-founded. A 2025 James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef: South, Nguyen has shown how a local kid with the right vision can build a small empire without diluting the food that started it all.

Fabrizio Schenardi

Ravello, Four Seasons Orlando

Fabrizio Schenardi’s path to Orlando ran through half the map: culinary school in Torino, an apprenticeship in Sardinia, gigs in New York, Jamaica, and California, then a run in St. Louis before Tampa, where he opened a hotel restaurant in 2004 that drew notice as much for his personal charm as his cooking. At the Four Seasons Orlando, he oversees every kitchen on the property, but Ravello is the one with his fingerprints most clearly on it. The Italian restaurant turns out breads and pastas made in-house, pizzas blistered in a custom oven, and recipes lifted from his grandmother’s notebooks. It’s the kind of resort dining that could easily lean on the Four Seasons name, but Schenardi makes it personal—and in a city drowning in anonymous hotel restaurants, that kind of charm has real weight.