Ryan Shane is a Team USA short track speedskater who just missed a spot on the roster to compete in the Milano Cortina Games, delaying his Olympic dreams.
But while his teammates are fighting for gold, 21-year-old Shane is using the extended break to hone his other career as a professional chef.
Shane has been working in kitchens since 16, but started putting his efforts into his own project about two years ago. Sisu is his fine dining pop-up restaurant that hosts omakase-style dinners in Park City and the Salt Lake Valley, where he lives. It’s his way to bring the fine dining he loves in other places to his home in Utah.
The events are intimate. Intricate meals are served over a dozen courses, and sometimes the chef must go months between dinners — but for the speedskater, it’s an opportunity to follow two dreams at once.
“I found a love for cooking, for fine dining, and I think that it’s really exciting. And I want to work on advancing both of my careers,” Shane said.
Shane, originally from Ohio, first discovered cooking at 15, driven by a need to fuel his body for skating.
“I was just starting to work out more and more, and I was hungry more and more. So I got tired of eating eggs every day,” he joked.
As Shane became older, he tried out a few restaurant jobs and continued to learn more about the fine dining world on Instagram and YouTube. Eventually, he decided to seek out training from culinary leaders themselves, dedicating his off-season from skating to staging or interning at different restaurants.
His first internship was at Boka, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Chicago. Then there was Smyth and Michelin-starred Ever Restaurant. In Salt Lake City, he spent time at Oquirrh. He also did a stint at Eleven Madison Park in New York City, which in 2022 was the first plant-based restaurant to ever earn three Michelin stars.
Working in these environments was incredibly eye-opening, the chef said. He learned new techniques and started to understand the attention to detail that high-level fine dining requires.
“You can’t leave a speck of dust on the table. You can’t rip a label. Everything just has to be lined up straight, really clean, really organized,” Shane said. “Not just in how it’s set up, but that’s how the food tastes as well: seasoning really precisely, layering your flavors and building a lot more in the food.”
So when it came time to start his own project — ambitious for the then-19 year old — Shane knew he wanted to bring that level of dining to the Park City and Salt Lake City scene.
“The audience is definitely there, and I think that they’re still looking for more,” Shane said. “Even for the people who already are eating out in Park City, I think that there’s another level above that for people who are really looking for a super special experience.”
Not necessarily expensive, he said, but a unique meal and an expression of the chef’s own creativity. That’s what he’s aimed to bring with Sisu, the pop-up style giving him both flexibility for his training schedule, as well as room to design something new for each small event.
When it comes to designing and executing his elaborate menus, Shane said he has the same approach to his chef coat as he does to his skates: discipline.
“I think that if you want to be at the top of the culinary world, or you want to be at the top of the sports world, you have to have a really strong work ethic. I think attention to detail goes a long way,” he said. “If making sure your speed skating technique is really efficient, and making sure you’re recovering well, you’re fueling your body well, there’s definitely a lot of parallels there.”
It’s a philosophy evident even in the concept’s name. “Sisu” is a Finnish term representing extraordinary determination and resilience in the face of extreme adversity, Shane said. It’s all about inner strength, pushing past one’s limits, even when a task may seem impossible.
Perhaps a little intense for a restaurant, but for the chef, pushing the limits of a dish or a meal is always his goal. Especially in a region that is lagging behind culinary capitals like Chicago, he said.
“I don’t think that there’s as much excellent fine dining food here as there could be,” he said. “I think that that’s a market that hasn’t really been filled, and so I wanted to bring a higher level of excellence in dining to Salt Lake City and to Park City.”
His concept is a take on the new Nordic movement —like at three-Michelin-star restaurant Noma in Denmark — which focuses on sustainability, use of local produce and the preservation or fermentation of ingredients to use annually.
Shane began fermenting and creating his own products, like a sunflower seed miso or jars of preserves and vinegars, stored at a makeshift larder in his home. This “library of flavors” can then be used to design his menus, which are different for each event, and sometimes differ between tables. That flexibility ensures guests have the freshest flavors possible.
“The idea is that every day of the year you might have something new that comes in that’s fresh off the farm, or you might have an idea, and you only have enough of a preserve to make a small portion,” Shane said. “That (might) mean that half of the guests get something different than the other half because the quality is only there for two different items.”
He said working with the local produce and game in Utah is inspiring, with plenty of interesting options from trout farms to wild fruits to robust summer markets.
Shane said most events he plans are available for the public, usually set up at a local cafe for one night. Sometimes he and his concept are hired for private events, like, most recently, a fundraiser for U.S. Speedskating.
But Shane said he hopes to soon take this project to the next step.
“I’m aiming to do a residency this spring and (be) open like two or three days a week consistently for a couple of months,” he said. “I really like sort of imitating a real restaurant, even if I can’t have one all the time.”
The chef’s priority, though, is speedskating and representing Team USA in the Winter Games. But following an Olympic year, the upcoming off-season should give him time to be more active with Sisu.
“Once I’m done skating, I’ll cook full-time. But for now, I think this is a good project to keep pushing my skills,” he said.
To follow Sisu’s upcoming events, visit @sisurestaurant or @ryansshane on Instagram, or ryansshane.com.