Keeping chefs in one place is a tricky business, and it’s even harder when the employer is a trendy hotelier like Kimpton, which offers steady career advancement opportunities paired with frequent chances to move to bigger, buzzier cities. And while The Goodland hotel and its Outpost restaurant may be the hippest spot in Goleta, Santa Barbara’s suburban sister doesn’t exactly offer the kind of flashy nightlife and bright media lights of places such as Seattle, Denver, and Amsterdam, where three Outpost alum now find themselves.
But Damien Giliberti, who was named the restaurant’s executive chef earlier this year, seems poised to stay, as he’s rather enthused about his first chance to run a kitchen. Raised in New Jersey, where his family owned and lived adjacent to their pizzeria, Giliberti got his culinary degree from Johnson & Wales in Miami and entered the Kimpton fold there eight years ago. He came to Santa Barbara six years ago, working first for four years at Finch & Fork and then the last two at Outpost.
When Chef James Siao left the helm of both properties last April to run the Wyers gastropub at the DeWitt hotel in Amsterdam, Giliberti started angling for the top job. “They definitely didn’t give it to me,” he said. “I fought tooth and nail for it.” That included developing multiple menus for Kimpton’s top tastemakers and direct competition with out-of-town chefs, who were trying to wow the same executives.