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Jordan Lerner loves to convince someone in the Mackay Campus Center Dining Hall to try a dish they claim they don’t like. As executive chef for hospitality and event services at Princeton Theological Seminary, Lerner nourishes countless students and their families, getting to know their personalities and taste buds.
“There are very few jobs where you can be a chef and interact with the guests as much as I am able to here,” he said. “I meet students. We talk. If they bring their wife, their child, their mother, I get to know them as well. You see the same people every day; you get to learn their dietary preferences. When they say, ‘I don’t eat this or that.’ I’ll say, ‘You haven’t had it here.’”
Lerner oversees every aspect of the Seminary’s dining operations — from menu development and kitchen leadership to food safety and financial stewardship. He directs a team of cooks, ensures quality and consistency across daily meals and special events, and works closely with colleagues across campus to create a dining experience that supports the Seminary’s mission.
There are very few jobs where you can be a chef and interact with the guests as much as I am able to here. I meet students. We talk. If they bring their wife, their child, their mother, I get to know them as well. You see the same people every day.
One initiative Lerner has emphasized during his tenure at Princeton is deeper collaboration with departments across campus, developing customized menus that often exceed the expectations of traditional campus dining while meeting each event’s specific requirements. For Lerner and his team, he added, every request, no matter how simple or complex, is approached with the same commitment to excellence.
Cooking has been a lifelong passion for Lerner, who could be found in the kitchen on Thanksgiving Day as a child, rather than watching the football game. “I always wanted to be a chef in some capacity and wanted to be in charge. I was always the one cousin that was in grandma’s small little apartment kitchen in New York, helping out, carving the turkey, making the salad, whatever I could do,” he fondly recalled.
Lerner attended Middlesex County College for culinary studies, even winning a scholarship while he was there, and began his career in various hotels, restaurants, and banquet facilities after graduation. Life in the culinary industry edged toward burnout for Lerner about three years ago, bringing him to question his future in the notoriously demanding field. Fortuitously, he found a job opening at Princeton Theological Seminary, and he never looked back.
Lerner embraced his role on campus and approached it deliberately, taking time to assess the existing culture and operations before charting a path forward.
“You can’t completely change everything at once. It’s about food quality, food safety, working with the cooks, seeing what their skill set is, and kind of developing a game plan on what I can teach them and how I can build each one up. We have evolved tenfold.”
He takes great pride in mentoring his cooks and chefs. “As an executive chef, I’m their boss, but I’m also their teacher.” Lerner was effusive in his praise for his staff. “They have great skills, and it’s up to me to identify those skills. When new dishes or new cuisines come along or funky stuff that someone might not have made before, it’s up to me to teach them. Everyone learns a little differently, so my approach to each one of them is a little different.”
He added, “They’re always receptive. In a good way, we’re always trying to one-up the last event, the last meal, and make it that much better.”
The Seminary, he says, is one of the most collegial atmospheres in which he has worked. “The amount of appreciation myself and the rest of the dining services get on a daily basis means a lot.”
Lerner enjoys the challenge of presenting new dishes to his staff and to the students. “I love showing them what’s possible.” In that sense, he is truly an educator, with the kitchen as his classroom, and technique, collaboration, and hospitality as his lessons.
Ultimately, Jordan explained, “We’re teaching the students about good food.”
