Why Cooking is Caregiving, with Chef Hillary Sterling | Better in Person

What It Covers

Freakonomics Radio host Stephen Dubner interviews Hilary Sterling, executive chef at Union Square Hospitality Group's Chisiamo in New York City, exploring how she built a career around sensory-based cooking, kitchen leadership philosophy, restaurant economics, and her view that cooking is fundamentally an act of caregiving rather than craft.

Key Questions Answered

• •Sensory-based cooking: Sterling trains kitchen staff to cook by sound, touch, and smell rather than relying solely on thermometers or timers. She has cooks close their eyes to listen to pasta in the pan and teaches lemon-squeezing by hand to maintain physical connection with ingredients — arguing that sensory engagement produces more consistent, intuitive results than instrument-dependent methods alone.
• •Deliberate skill mastery: When Sterling overcooked 125 pork tenderloins on her first night on sauté at Mesa Grill, her chef gave her seven days to practice before her next shift. She spent that week repeatedly searing and monitoring the meat until she could identify doneness visually. This focused repetition — not instruction — produced lasting competence and became her model for teaching others.
• •Restaurant procurement negotiation: Sterling negotiates food costs directly, using volume as leverage. She purchased 28,000 pounds of cipollini onions in one year and used that figure to solicit competing bids from multiple suppliers. For a 50-pound tuna order, she contacted every fish vendor simultaneously, waited for responses, then negotiated down — a replicable approach for any high-volume recurring purchase.
• •Kitchen leadership without hierarchy: Sterling's management method follows a three-step sequence: explain why something is done a specific way, demonstrate how, then do it together with the cook. She intervenes immediately when she observes errors rather than waiting, framing corrections as teaching moments. This approach, she reports, results in cooks thanking her rather than feeling criticized or undermined.
• •Career identity over prestige: Sterling declined an offer to run Union Square Cafe — one of New York's most prestigious restaurant positions — because she determined the role would require her to maintain an established culinary identity rather than develop her own. She prioritized creative ownership over institutional prestige, a decision she credits with enabling the distinct voice she later built at Chisiamo.