William Douillet

WillDouillet

Restaurateur. Service, wine and experience design for restaurants that ask something of the room.

Will Douillet is an American restaurateur and veteran in the world of hospitality. Originally from Berkshire County in Western Massachusetts, Douillet's career has included leading the service and wine programs for some of the most acclaimed & transportive restaurants in the United States.

A young sommelier in a dark suit pouring red wine for a seated guest in the dining room at Alinea.
Alinea, ChicagoStill in his twenties, on the floor at Alinea. That year the restaurant took three Michelin stars for the first time and the James Beard Foundation award for Outstanding Hospitality & Service, and Douillet was selected to open the group's second restaurant, NEXT, as General Manager. Beyond the accolades, the years alongside Achatz reshaped his understanding of creativity and design — an influence that continues to inform his work.

Early in his career Douillet was Wine Director and General Manager for Daniel Boulud at the eponymous One-Star Michelin restaurant db Brasserie. From there, he was introduced to modern gastronomy as the first General Manager for José Andrés in the 4-star opening of The Bazaar by José Andrés in Beverly Hills, the first of many Bazaar restaurants by Andrés. Bazaar was a James Beard Finalist for both Best New Restaurant and Best Design.

Following The Bazaar, Will garnered an opportunity that would greatly influence both the rest of his career as well as his creative process & approach to the dining experience. In Chicago he joined Grant Achatz and the rarefied team at Alinea as Sommelier where they soon were awarded 3-stars Michelin, Best Service North America from the James Beard Foundation, and Best Restaurant in North America from San Pellegrino Top 50 Restaurants, as well as Number Five in the World.

The dining room at NEXT before service: white-clothed tables, grey banquettes, and arched steel beams overhead.
NEXT, ChicagoThe dining room set before service. Within its first year the team held a Zagat service rating of 29 — a point above Alinea next door, and the highest in North America.

After two years at Alinea he was chosen to lead the opening of NEXT Restaurant as General Manager, Achatz' second restaurant. While at NEXT the team was awarded 4-stars on four successive reviews, won James Beard Best New Restaurant North America, and Eater.com's Restaurant of the Year North America. The team received a Zagat rating of 29 in service, one point higher than their sister restaurant Alinea, making them the highest service-rated restaurant in North America all within their first year of opening.

Working closely with Achatz and Chef de Cuisine Dave Beran, Douillet helped concept several dishes, service pieces & experiential themes in several opening menus, and was featured prominently throughout the dining experience.

A single long table set across a ridge at Powder Mountain, Utah, at sunset, with guests seated along its length.
Summit Series — Outside, the flagship event. Dinner for a thousand, served as an intimate picnic at 8,000 feet against the Utah backdrop. Chris Blackwell remarked afterward that it was the most impressive dinner he had attended in his life — a considerable compliment from a life such as his.

At Summit Series, Douillet served as Director of Experience Design and Hospitality, working alongside the founders and team through the company’s acquisition of Powder Mountain in Eden, Utah. The role placed him in charrettes with world-class architects and designers, and introduced him to Grant Blakeslee, a staff architect at Summit. Blakeslee and Douillet talked about completely open kitchens, long sight lines, a feeling that you could walk into the kitchen and take something off the shelf with the ease of your own home — and somewhere along the way the foundations for a new restaurant in Brooklyn were set in motion.

Animated assembly drawing of the ILIS kitchen showing the layered cloud canopy lowering into place above the pass.
The cloud — canopy assembly above the open kitchen at ILIS.

While consulting on experience design and service at lower Manhattan's Atera restaurant Will met noma co-founder Mads Refslund and began building what became ILIS in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Shortly after opening ILIS received Restaurant of the Year from Esquire Magazine, La Liste Most Important Openings 2024, and the UNESCO Prix Versailles' Most Beautiful Restaurant in the World.

Architectural rendering of a restaurant kitchen and counter: long dark counter with stools, a central island, and backlit gridded panels above.
In progress — undisclosedA US restaurant from two San Pellegrino Top 50 chefs. In Douillet's method the steps and motions of the guest experience are the building blocks everything else rests on — floorplans, launch plans, marketing, hiring, and every component it takes to open a restaurant.

Douillet has since been consulting on a number of hospitality projects around the world, from Adelaide to Dubai to the mountains of Utah, where he ran experience design for Summit Series during their acquisition of Powder Mountain. When not at work you can probably find him running in the mountains, practicing his photography or praying the US soccer team wins their next game.

Project Highlight

Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Built with noma co-founder Mads Refslund.

The ILIS dining room: exposed timber ceiling and raw brick, the plaster canopy sweeping over the open kitchen.
The roomLooking toward the open kitchen and the pass.

In 2020, with the city shut down, Douillet and Mads Refslund were approached by an investor building a private museum inside a 20,000 square foot warehouse in Greenpoint. He held a space adjacent to the gallery, and wanted to know what the two of them would do with it.

Guests seated along the counter beside the raw bar display, cooks working the pass behind it.
The counterGuests seated into the kitchen rather than around it.

They designed the restaurant during a rainstorm. The building had been a taxi depot during the Second World War and a shoe factory afterward, and the intent was to answer to that history rather than cover it over. The decision that settled everything else came early: the kitchen would sit at the centre of the room, fully open, with guests seated into it rather than around it. Long sight lines, no wall between the work and the watching, and the cooks delivering most of the courses themselves. Service and cooking cease to be separate departments and become one continuous thing the guest sits inside of. The Faurschou gallery next door contributed works by Ai Weiwei and Georg Baselitz.

The dining room with communal wood tables, brick wall and a large Georg Baselitz canvas above the banquette.
The dining roomBeneath the Baselitz, on loan from the Faurschou gallery next door.

Six weeks after opening, Esquire named ILIS the best restaurant in America. La Liste 1000 included it among the Most Important Openings of 2024, and that December the Prix Versailles — announced each year at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris — named it the most beautiful restaurant in the world.

Looking into the dining room past the glass wine room, a tree in a concrete planter against exposed brick.
ArrivalThe approach, past the wine room.

Building ILIS clarified something Douillet had not anticipated. The ambition was never the finished restaurant; it was the building of it — the rainstorm, the argument over sight lines, the year of decisions that never appear in a photograph. Since shortly after the opening he has worked on other people's projects, shaping their ideas and helping them build. It is the work he intends to continue.