Andrew Budnyj

Chef de Cuisine, FARM at The Carneros Inn

In his role as Chef de Cuisine at FARM, Andrew Budnyj takes ingredients very seriously. With a culinary philosophy based around cooking and ingredients, Andrew collaborates with The Carneros Inn's Culinary Gardener, Peter Stonebreaker and Executive Chef, Steven Tevere to decide what to grow in the ½ acre culinary garden and create a truly sustainable in-house network. While Peter grows and harvests, Andrew showcases their house grown produce on the menu, with all waste returning to the garden for composting. "Stellar ingredients are an essential part of cooking great food, so it is an exceptional opportunity to be working so closely with the people producing the food I cook with," says Andrew. In the case of any ingredients not grown on-site, Andrew works with local farmers to procure interesting and unique seasonal ingredients, as well as working with neighboring ranches and award-winning cheese producers.

It was Chef Jeffrey Beuben who originally inspired Andrew to go to Culinary School at the age of 17. After studying at the New England Culinary Institute, Andrew started his career under the guidance of Jeffrey Beuben at Vidalia in Washington, DC. He then went on to Aqua where he worked extensively with Chef Michael Mina. Within the Mina Group, Andrew worked as Chef for both Pisces in Burlingame and Arcadia in San Jose. He then moved to Napa Valley to join Domain Chandon as Sous Chef, eventually leaving to become a Consulting Chef for Cindy Pawlcyn at GoFish in St. Helena. Previous to his time at The Carneros Inn, Andrew was Sous Chef at Ubuntu, and worked with Jeremy Fox, focusing on Ubuntu's garden grown vegetables. Andrew joined The Carneros Inn in early 2010 as Sous Chef at FARM and within a year was named Chef de Cuisine.

Located at The Carneros Inn, a luxury PlumpJack Resort in the heart of Napa Valley's Carneros winegrowing district, FARM was designed to provide visitors, guests and residents with world-class hospitality amidst some of California's most picturesque vineyard landscapes. At the gateway to the Northern California wine country, FARM is just 45 minutes from the Golden Gate Bridge.