Executive Chef
Canyon Ranch
As Executive Chef at Canyon Ranch Las Vegas, Kendall Steeno builds, supports, and emboldens a great Las Vegas culinary team, steering them towards goals of excellence. Overseeing Canyon Ranch Café, Truth & Tonic Wellness Café, and CR Creāt — all located in Canyon Ranch Las Vegas in The Venetian Resort — he and his team along with the Food & Nutrition team collaborate daily to create inspiring cuisine that encourages wellness, vitality, and a healthy lifestyle for guests.
As the child of a military family, Steeno brings a wealth of diverse experience in both culture and cooking style that stretches across the country, having had to move often as a child growing up. From being born in Colorado Springs, Colorado; to living in Green Bay, Wisconsin; and stretching down south to Savannah, Georgia, and Hilton Head, South Carolina; Steeno's vast knowledge and passion for being a chef is self-taught, and his success is earned through "trial by fire" on the job.
He brings ten years of experience cooking classical French delicacies, pastries, and breads at multiple restaurants and venues. He's stretched his culinary prowess, learning to prepare a vast range of cuisine, including Southern BBQ, Thai, Indian, and vegan. Steeno also has 18 years of culinary experience catering events, from crowds filled with thousands of diners to exclusive private dinners.
Steeno has catered for IMSA Racing, feeding racers, executives, engineers, and everyone in between. He traveled all over the U.S. and France for the 24 Hours of Le Mans Hypercar endurance racing, learning high-volume, high-end, and elegant catering. Steeno was also one of eight executive chefs who traveled nationally and internationally for events. He was also chef de partie for the exclusive Landings Club in Savannah, Georgia — one of the world's largest private residential golf clubs — where he spent two years learning high-end Southern cooking.
He worked for a decade as a sous chef alongside his mentor, Chef Claude Melchiorri —a world-famous chef at Maxims in Paris and The Connaught Hotel in London — at Claude and Uli's Bistro in South Carolina. The restaurant was named #1 out of 200 restaurants three years in a row during his time there.
On his downtime, Steeno can often be found in his homestead in Pahrump, Nevada with his adopted and rescued animals. He loves to swim with his dogs Ziggy, Marley, and Ash and go for hikes through the canyons. Cooking with his wife and his son is his most cherished pastime. After residing in the Las Vegas area for over five years, his newfound passion is the desire to help Three Square with its mission to help feed the food insecure of Southern Nevada. His favorite words of wisdom: "If you change nothing, nothing will change."