Orion Russell
Greenpoint Fish & Lobster Co. | Brooklyn
October 2019
Californian Nico Russell grew up cooking alongside his mother, who often used produce from the family garden to make his favorite dishes. He enrolled at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco immediately after high school and graduated in 2008. Russell began working in French fine dining with Chefs Joel Guillon and Roland Passot. He then moved to Chez TJ, a Michelin-starred destination helmed by Chef Scott Nishiyama. In 2014, Russell moved to New York to work as a sous chef to Chef Jean-Francois Bruel at Daniel and for Boulud’s special events department Feast and Fêtes. He soon left to work at Chef Mauro Colagreco’s two Michelin-star restaurant in the south of France, Mirazur. While there, the restaurant rose to sixth place on the “World’s 50 Best” list.
After spending a year in France, Russell returned to New York and began pop-up Oxalis. During the next two years, Russell hosted more than 30 distinct dinners, including a sold-out, month-long residency at Colors on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. In December 2018, Oxalis settled into a permanent space in Brooklyn, giving the area between the Prospect Heights and Crown Heights neighborhoods a slice of the French Riviera.
