From Washing Dishes to Wall Street: A Michelin Star Chef’s Journey to UVA Darden

Darden School of Business students have varied and interesting career histories, but for Charles Verheggen (Class of 2026), the journey from dishwashing in the Netherlands, to a chef in a three-Michelin-star restaurant in New York, all the way to Darden and a future in investment banking has been especially unconventional.

Born and raised in northern Virginia, Verheggen attended college in the Netherlands to learn more about his family’s Dutch roots. He majored in economics but discovered a passion and talent for cooking when he got a job as a dishwasher at Calla’s, a one-star restaurant in the Hague.

“It’s a pretty low-level task, and I loved it,” he said. Verheggen dove headfirst into the excitement of kitchen culture, discovering his zest for a challenge. He had to pick up Dutch quickly, and the comradery made the pressure of upholding Michelin standards worth the stress.

The Michelin Guide, launched in 1900 by the Michelin Tire Company, originally aimed to boost car travel and tire sales in France by highlighting great places to stop for a meal. It evolved into a prestigious culinary guide, awarding coveted stars that are globally recognized as symbols of quality. Reflecting its roots in travel, the guide awards up to three stars: one star signifies a great restaurant worth stopping for, two stars for an excellent restaurant worth a detour, and three stars highlight an exceptional restaurant that is worth a special trip just for the dining experience.

Charles Verheggen (Class of 2026) discovered a passion for cooking during his undergrad years, when worked as a dishwasher at a Michelin star restaurant in the Hague.

Through his mentor chef at Calla’s, Verheggen got the opportunity to do unpaid internships, or “stagiaires,” at a handful of three-star Michelin restaurants, including Noma in Copenhagen (featured on the TV series “The Bear”), Le Bernardin in New York and eventually Eleven Madison Park in New York. He came onboard Eleven Madison Park when the restaurant, which was awarded the number one spot by The World’s 50 Best Restaurants in 2017, was redefining itself as a vegan restaurant with the goal of being the only restaurant in the world to earn three Michelin stars without using animal products.

“The night we earned the stars…we were elated. It was a great celebration — it was probably the most rewarding moment in my career,” he said.

Verheggen worked there for around two and a half years, rising through the ranks in the kitchen, working every station as chef de partie and ultimately training people at all stations as chef taurnant.

“They are aggressive workplaces,” said Verheggen, reporting that the FX show “The Bear” is accurate “to a T.” He described one instance when he was salting a dish with three fingers, and a senior chef smacked his hand and demanded that he use two fingers to achieve salting perfection.

“It’s a consequence of the constant pressure,” said Verheggen. “There are a lot of things that are out of your control, so they try to control everything down to how their employee is salting this specific dish.”

Even so, he found the tight bonds of the kitchen and the satisfaction of a job well done under pressure compelling. “The flip side of that is it is a very rewarding business. One of my favorite things is going out to the clients and serving them a dish and having them be so elated at what they’re eating and have questions. It’s so satisfying.”

After Eleven Madison Park, Verheggen struck out with some colleagues to open his own restaurant in Brooklyn. As adept as he was at running a kitchen and getting delicious food on tables, he realized he didn’t know important aspects of the business side of things. “There were a lot of things that were out of my depth. I think that’s when I started applying to business school — when I realized, oh, I don’t know how to pitch to investors. I don’t really know how to apply for a small business loan, but this is what we have to do.”

Darden came in to bridge the gap, as it does with so many career journeys.

“It was a great way to pivot,” said Verheggen of choosing Darden to get his MBA. “They didn’t really seem to be bothered by the fact that I had worked what was effectively a blue-collar job … that was something that actually they saw as being unique and could add value in the classroom.”

Verheggen is looking to make an unconventional switch from the kitchen to investment banking. Though the jobs are quite different, he is consistently drawn to a challenge.

“In terms of it being a demanding job, I find that I’m most motivated by the difficulty of the tasks,” he said. “And really the throughline is that restaurants at the three-Michelin-star level pride themselves on their systems.” He wants to take his experience and interest in exacting systems and put it to use in a different way.

Things he is learning at Darden could have helped him in the past, and he said is excited about how the knowledge and skills will serve him in the future. Communication is a big one. Even in a restaurant setting, where emotions run hot and “there are a lot of tough, angry chefs,” he realized in a case about managing a boss’s expectations that he could have communicated more effectively in some of those situations. “He might throw something, just duck your head. But I didn’t realize there is a lot of value in over-communicating and managing expectations up to that point,” he said.

Verheggen recently accepted an offer to work as a summer Associate at JP Morgan Chase & Co. within their consumer and retail investment banking group. (photo by Caroline Mackey)

On a more quantitative side, Verheggen looks at things like pricing at his Brooklyn restaurant differently now. Their approach at the time “didn’t get people in the door,” he said, but after learning different pricing and marketing strategies through Darden case work, “I realized, we would still be a business and doing well if we had that information.”

Next time, Verheggen will be ready to approach the restaurant business from an entirely different angle.

“When I realized I could actually still do things in restaurants through investment banking, I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a done deal.’” He cited the success of Shake Shack, which was invented in Eleven Madison Park’s test kitchen and later grew through an initial public offering.

“I don’t want to be in that situation smelling like onions and garlic anymore,” he said. “But I do still love restaurants and have a passion for them.”