‘Beat Bobby Flay’ winner Chef Amanda Salas raises Journeyman Distillery to even greater culinary heights

For nearly two years, Amanda Salas, corporate chef and executive chef for Journeyman Distillery, has worked tirelessly to ensure that Journeyman's food options meet the company’s high standard of quality. Although Salas primarily supervises the culinary operations at Journeyman's Union Hall location in Valparaiso, she also oversees the operations at Journeyman's Staymaker location in Three Oaks, Michigan.

Salas is deeply passionate about cooking and enjoys crafting the ultimate culinary experience for Journeyman’s patrons alongside the rest of her team.

"Journeyman is a company of hard-working, passionate individuals,” Salas said. “Everyone is committed to contributing to the greater good of the group and we all want to offer our guests the highest quality experience. We do our best to reflect Journeyman’s ‘whiskey hospitality’ in each guest’s experience, through both food and beverage. That's something we do well and we are always looking for new ways to improve upon it."

Salas primarily specializes in approachable comfort foods, especially American foods like steaks, seafood, and hamburgers, often putting her own unique twist on them. She also gravitates towards French bistro, another style of comfort food, and classical French cuisine. 

Salas first discovered her love for the culinary arts while cooking and baking at home with her mother and five siblings. After realizing in middle school that she could make a career out of cooking, Salas set out to do just that. During her last few semesters of high school, she honed her skills in home economics classes. 

While enrolled in the associate culinary program at Elgin Community College, an institution based in her hometown of Elgin, Illinois, Salas cooked for local cafés and restaurants. During this time, she began working at the prestigious One Sixtyblue in Chicago. She went from an entry-level line cook to the restaurant’s executive sous chef, the second highest-ranking position in the kitchen, within four years.   

“I learned so much at One Sixtyblue. I wasn’t disregarded because I’m a woman, I was fortunate to have coworkers and supervisors who wanted to work with me and encouraged me,” Salas said.

Salas went on to open Rockit Bar & Grill in Chicago alongside one of her colleagues from One Sixtyblue, once again taking the position of sous chef. She stayed with the company for 12 ½ years, opening another location and eventually becoming an executive chef partner. In her new position, Salas oversaw restaurant operations, events, and even the company’s nightclub.

She then worked for a year at Bistronomic in Chicago which was owned by Martial Noguier, another mentor from One Sixtyblue. In 2018, Salas began working as the executive chef at the Smoke Daddy barbecue restaurant location in the Hotel Zachary, across from Wrigley Field, for about 2 ½ years. In late 2020, Salas worked at Recess at City Hall, before moving on to work as culinary director at Edie’s All Day Café and Bar in 2021.

That was also the year Salas was featured on the widely popular culinary game show "Beat Bobby Flay."  The show pits two professional chefs against one another in a competition to create the best dish. The chef whose meal wins out then competes against world-class celebrity chef Bobby Flay. In the episode “In Bobby’s Kitchen, With Amy Sedaris,” which aired in June of 2022, Salas went head-to-head against Flay to see who could make the best beef stroganoff. The judges deemed Salas’ take on this classic comfort food dish to be superior to Flay's and awarded her the win.

Salas greatly enjoyed her time on “Beat Bobby Flay” and looks back on it fondly.

"I was on an adrenaline high that day,” Salas said. "My favorite part of the experience was winning the show. I was also very pleased that my dish turned out the way I intended it during my cook against Bobby Flay. I kept reminding myself, 'You actually know what you're doing here, so just cook what you were planning to cook and make sure it tastes good.' I took things slow and was able to get the result that I wanted in the end. I had been on TV segments and other productions, but that was the first time I was on a cooking show. It was a very cool experience."

After joining the Journeyman family in July 2023, Salas began building a unique menu for the Valparaiso location in preparation for its opening in October of that year. Salas and her team have recently standardized both Journeyman locations’ menus, thus streamlining operations and allowing guests to enjoy dishes like Journeyman’s signature meatloaf at both restaurants. However, Salas takes care to preserve some unique menu selections, such as the Detroit-style pizza that the Three Oaks location has offered for many years.

Salas enjoys crafting Journeyman’s menus and takes particular pleasure in creating menus for special Journeyman events like the annual American Authors Dinner, a four-course dinner inspired by great literary works. She looks forward to working alongside the rest of the Journeyman staff to create the optimal experience for each customer.

"I like that the Journeyman team is so innovative," Salas said. "The owners Bill and Johanna Welter and the staff work very hard to grow the company. This is truly a family business. From the very beginning, Journeyman's core values of grit and treating each customer as if they were the first have resonated with me. That's what drew me to Journeyman in the first place and it's what keeps me here. I've always wanted to be a part of something greater, and, now that I'm at Journeyman, I feel like I am."

Please visit journeyman.com for more information on Journeyman Distillery’s food and beverage menus and to stay up-to-date on its upcoming events.