Updated posts 2026
“I love making food that makes people happy. I don’t compete with other chefs, I compete with myself and am constantly evolving to be the best version of myself. This has led me to do what is best for the guests of my restaurants,” said famed New York City chef Franklin Becker.
With over 30 years of culinary experience, acclaimed chef, co-founder, and CEO of The Hospitality Dept. based out of the Martinique Hotel and employing over 260 people in hospitality alone, Chef Becker and his partner Stephen Loffredo are not slowing down. Committed to room service and banqueting for the hotel, Becker’s love for cooking the perfect steak is the focus of the hotel’s staple restaurant, the Press Club. The Press Club is an homage to the “Mad Men” era and features signature dishes like beef wellington and duck à l’orange.
“One of my signature items at the Press Club is the steak, where I rest it in a warm bath of clarified butter, herbs and garlic. When the steak comes off the grill it rests in the butter producing a sous vide effect, allowing the meat to relax without losing any of its moisture. Then putting it back under the broiler, it caramelizes and creates the perfect crunchy bits on top of the steak, allowing for that perfect beautiful crust,” said Chef Becker.
Chef Becker is very technique driven. Through all his restaurants and entrepreneurial ventures, his goal has always been to enhance the main ingredient, whatever it might be — meat, poultry, fish or vegetable. Becker has focused on providing supporting ingredients that highlight his main dish. He affirms that his food is clean and that the flavors do not mask the beauty of the dish, but create an exciting enhancement to the product’s natural flavor.
Chef Becker, born in Brooklyn, New York, graduated from the Culinary Institute of America and forged a pathway for himself in the culinary world as executive chef of Capitale, named one of the best new restaurants in America in 2003. In 2009, he became the Corporate Executive Chef of the EMM Group, which later became the Catch Group. There he built the reputation of restaurants including Abe & Arthur’s, Lexington Brass and Catch. Becker was the winner of Burger Bash in 2011 at the annual New York Food and Wine Festival, with a burger using a blend of short rib, chuck and brisket along with a sauce combining seven different condiments. His warmth, personality, and charisma were seen through his participation in Bravo’s Top Chef Masters in 2013.
Currently, the chef has four fast casual restaurants at Manhattanville Market on Columbia University’s graduate school campus. Shai, an Israeli restaurant at the market, is known for its hummus, with all food made fresh including pita from scratch. Coming soon is Universal Taco, a new Mexican-style dining experience. Becker’s entrepreneurial vision in hospitality allowed him to understand the vacuum in food options from 125th to 138th Street. He filled this void for the Columbia University district with an affordable international market for students and the public.
Point Seven, located at the MetLife Building at 200 Park Avenue, is Becker’s baby, producing seafood dishes, surf and turf varieties, and more. His Bento by Point Seven serves fast casual sushi selections.
He is opening the cocktail bar Bronze Owl, featuring cocktails by bartender Max Green and small Italian bites by Chef Dan Drohan.
Becker is also set to open a doughnut shop called Sweet Graffiti with pastry chef Sam Mason. A versatile chef, his high-end restaurants and fast-casual dining have solidified him as a master of the kitchen.
At the age of 27 Becker was diagnosed with diabetes. As an entrepreneur with an eye for vision, Becker created The Little Beet and Hungryroot, a vegetarian-friendly restaurant and an online grocery store with veggie-forward menus. Using herbs and experimentation, Becker learned how to cook clean and provide healthy flavors to the table.
That diagnosis arriving at 27, in the middle of a career built around butter and salt, is the kind of turn that usually ends a chef’s momentum rather than redirecting it. What makes the response notable is that it produced businesses rather than restrictions — a fast-casual chain and a grocery service built around vegetables, aimed at people who wanted to eat differently without giving up the idea that food should taste like something. Plenty of chefs cook healthily. Fewer build companies out of the problem.
Having a son with autism, Becker understands many avenues of eating for better health. Taking his son to music therapy at NYU’s Nordoff-Robbins Center for Music Therapy, he learned the center needed help. A visionary not just in the kitchen, Becker created a fundraiser to support the music school that had helped his son. Raising over half a million dollars alongside other chefs, the Nordoff-Robbins Center was saved. This led the founders of Autism Speaks, Bob and Suzanne Wright, to work with Becker as a consistent force in raising awareness for autism. It was then that the Autism Speaks to Wall Street Celebrity Chefs Gala was created. Through the Chefs’ Gala, Becker has helped raise over $20 million to support Autism Speaks. Becker has brought in other celebrity chefs including Andrew Zimmern, Masaharu Morimoto, Daniel Boulud, Jonathan Waxman and Marc Vetri as advocates for the gala and the cause.
As a leader in culinary cuisine, Chef Franklin Becker has always been committed to giving back, not just through his hospitality company or restaurant concepts, but through philanthropy.
“Yes, I have competed on Iron Chef, Knife Fight, and Top Chef Masters. It is never about competition with others. As I always emphasize, competing with oneself to be your strongest self is the only form of competition one needs to succeed. On Top Chef Masters it was about the camaraderie. We were all seasoned veterans and really established. I played for Autism Speaks as we were all playing for charity,” said Becker.
Helping people and other chefs has always been part of Becker’s vision. Recognizing new generations of talent in the culinary world has kept Becker at the forefront as a leader for chefs in the industry.
Becker’s friend and former sous chef Chris Scott was a contestant on Top Chef Season 15. He was a finalist and had a restaurant in Brooklyn called Butterfunk. Due to high rents the restaurant closed. Becker backed Scott in creating Butterfunk Biscuit Co., currently located in the Manhattanville Market. This fourth-generation family recipe developed by Chris lives on, bringing Southern and Pennsylvania Dutch food combinations to the public.
Becker and Loffredo have also backed Robby Cook, one of Morimoto’s right-hand chefs, in Coral, a 10-seat omakase restaurant hidden within Point Seven. Becker has helped multiple chefs throughout the years, understanding that the culinary industry is about camaraderie and teamwork rather than competition. As a father in and out of the kitchen, and to the next generation of chefs, his diversified fine-dining and fast casual restaurants solidify Chef Franklin Becker’s reputation. Having been named one of New York’s Rising Star Chefs in 2006, he is today a philanthropist, culinary leader and visionary, using his entrepreneurial spirit to bring new culinary concepts to American cuisine.
