About the Guests
Helene Kennan is the founder of Kennan Food Strategies, a consulting firm focused on the intersection of food, technology, and hospitality operations. Conor Seargeant is the Vice President of Restaurants at Headington Companies in Dallas, Texas, overseeing a portfolio of food and beverage concepts across the group’s hospitality properties.
Episode Overview
Artificial intelligence is entering the restaurant industry — not as a distant possibility but as something operators and chefs are already making decisions about right now. In this episode, André Natera sits down with Helene Kennan and Conor Seargeant to cut through the noise and have a practical conversation about what AI actually means for restaurants, kitchens, and the people who work in them.
They cover how AI can support creativity rather than replace it, what it changes about menu engineering and kitchen efficiency, how hospitality leaders should be thinking about AI in their operations today, and what young chefs need to learn now to stay relevant as the technology evolves. They also get into the cultural stakes — what the soul of cooking is, why storytelling still matters in the age of automation, and where the line is between using technology as a tool and letting it erode what makes food and hospitality meaningful.
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