Gerry Hayden, the chef/proprietor of North Fork Table & Inn in Southold, NY, has passed away. He was 50. Before opening his Long Island restaurant, Hayden worked at a number of high-profile New York restaurants including River Cafe, Tribeca Grill, and Aureole, where he was the chef de cuisine for three years. In 2006, he opened North Fork Table & Inn, a farm-to-table restaurant, with his wife, former Gramercy Tavern pastry chef Claudia Fleming. In a video for the A Life Story foundation, Hayden explained:
My career has been basically a long history of helping great chefs open their restaurants, and then this is my kind of swan song. I came out here to open my own restaurant and be back on the island I grew up in, and be surrounded in a community that looks very similar to the one I grew up in.
The menu at North Fork highlights produce from small farmers in the area. Hayden was nominated for three James Beard Awards over the course of his career.
The chef was diagnosed with ALS in 2010, but he continued running the kitchen long after he lost the use of his hands. One of Hayden's friends, Holly Browder, tells the Suffolk Times: "This disease, as terrible as it was, really thrust him into the community...He loved to go and talk with people, as difficult as it was. He was still out there; he wasn’t giving up." Over the last few years, friends helped raise over $100,000 to help Hayden fight his battle with ALS though a non-profit called Hayden's Heroes.