From culinary school to kitchen leadership, guest-chef dinners and a menu of his own.
Imad Hasnain was born in Karachi, and today he is a sous chef at The Modern in New York. Between those two points are an education in culinary arts and food business management, an externship at Jean-Georges, work across the stations of The Modern’s kitchen and the responsibilities of helping lead a team. His career has grown through the work he has taken on, from preparing a station to supporting his chefs at buyouts and offsite events.
Hasnain was born in Karachi. His culinary education took him to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, where he completed an associate degree in culinary arts in 2020 and a bachelor’s degree in food business management in 2021. While studying, he also worked in the campus restaurants, including The EGG, American Bounty and The Tavern. His work included preparing stations, supporting the chefs and serving at live stations.
From September 2019 to January 2020, he was a culinary extern at Jean-Georges in New York. He worked on amuse-bouche and assisted the chefs de partie with their daily tasks. That was one part of his preparation for the work that followed. Another was learning through the different jobs that make a kitchen function, rather than seeing a restaurant only through the food that reaches the table.
He joined The Modern in February 2022 and became a sous chef in March 2025. Before that promotion, he worked his way through the kitchen: garde manger in the Bar Room, hot appetizers, meat entremet, fish roast and tournant. As a tournant, he worked across the dining room stations, taking a different station each day from Monday to Friday. His later assignments included Bar Room roast, dining room meat roast and morning tournant work. He has also worked in private dining. That range of experience is an accomplishment he values: he has learned the restaurant through its different stations and services.
Under the sous-chef title, he has supported the dining room, run the Bar Room’s dinner service and worked in private dining. Each assignment has added to the range of his role. He has now worked in different capacities as both a cook and a sous chef, while continuing to learn and grow.
Since May 2026, his assignment has been opening sous chef. He is responsible for making sure the restaurant has the raw product it needs, apart from protein and fish, and making sure everything goes according to plan. His role includes training junior staff and supporting fellow chefs and senior colleagues. Moving into leadership has meant taking responsibility for work beyond his own station.
Hasnain has supported his chefs through countless restaurant buyouts and offsite events. One offsite was for the Belmont Stakes, where he was Chef Tom’s right hand. The Modern hosts IBM for a buyout every year, and he was also part of The Modern team at De Gustibus in 2023 and 2024. At IBM and De Gustibus, he was in a support role. That work belongs alongside regular service in the story of his career. It has given him different settings in which to contribute to the team, whether they are working in the restaurant or taking their work elsewhere.
Working with Chef Tom and supporting guest-chef collaborations have also been part of his time at The Modern. The anniversary series included dinners with Josh Niland from Australia, David Toutain from France, the team from Kong Hans Kælder in Denmark and Alex Atala from Brazil. Each guest chef represented their own restaurant, and he worked on all of the dinners. In 2026, he worked on the dinner with Masala y Maiz as well.
The most important thing he has learned in this kitchen is that cooking is a representation of one’s thought process. How you create reflects what you value and the story you are trying to tell.
Alongside his work at The Modern, he cooked Le Rivage, a pop-up held on October 1, 2026, at Time Again Bar with The Third Mind. It was separate from his role at the restaurant and gave him a chance to present a menu of his own.
He also made a cameo in Bon Appétit’s A Full Night of Service at a 2-Michelin-Star Restaurant, released on April 30, 2026, while running the Bar Room. It captured a part of the restaurant’s service that he had been responsible for as a sous chef. Being part of the wins the restaurant progressively achieves is something that keeps him in love with the process and gives him immense joy to work at a restaurant that’s in constant evolution.
Hasnain is proud to have been part of the team during four consecutive years in which The Modern retained its two Michelin stars, from 2022 through 2025. Michelin describes two stars as excellent cooking, and maintaining that distinction means returning to that standard service after service. During his time at the restaurant, The Modern also became a member of Relais & Châteaux in 2024. In 2026, The Bar Room at the Modern was ranked No. 32 on The New York Times’s list of the 100 best restaurants in New York City. These are achievements of the restaurant and its team, not individual awards. Being part of that work matters to him: the recognition sits alongside the daily responsibility of preparing, cooking and supporting the chefs around him.
His next goal is to become an executive sous chef, open a restaurant, or both. The experience he takes forward is practical: working across stations, running services, supporting his chefs at buyouts and offsites, and helping the team maintain the standards their guests expect.
