Aug. 16, 2024 – For six years in the 1970s, Widjiono “Yono” Purnomo began the new year by traveling around the world in 111 days on the SS Rotterdam. On the other 254 days, he was docking at piers in the Netherlands, New York City and port cities in the Caribbean. Born and raised in Indonesia, Yono graduated with an associate degree in hospitality from the Academy Perhotelan Negara in Bandung, the first hospitality/culinary school in Southeast Asia. With credentials, curiosity, and a gregarious personality, he set out on his life adventure when the Holland America Line hired him, one of 6,000 employees they were seeking then to serve the growing popularity of leisure cruises as international transportation took to the skies. That job charted Yono’s course in life that eventually led him to Albany, New York. “I came from far away to change my life in the United States,” Chef Yono, CEC, CFBE, said to Chaîne during an Aug. 9, 2024 telephone interview with Yono and his wife, Donna.

Holland America Line Hospitality Career

For those who believe in love at first sight, Yono and his wife, Donna, have a version that can aptly be described as “love at first sight and song.” In 1976 on her first night as a passenger on the SS Rotterdam, Donna, with a background in music, theater and elementary education, sang a song at the piano bar in the “Crow’s Nest,” the Ritz Carlton lounge. Working in the lounge, Yono was immediately smitten. Since servers are assigned to tables for the duration of the cruise to build rapport with passengers, Yono cleverly switched assignments to serve Donna’s table. The end of the cruise was the beginning of their courtship as Donna booked several weeklong cruises so they could see each other. She also saw Yono whenever his ship docked in New York City.

Born and raised in Amsterdam, New York, about 30 miles from Albany, Donna said it was a leap of faith that worked out. Donna and Yono eloped in January 1977 in Southampton, New York but Yono had to return to Jakarta the day after their wedding since his Holland America contract had ended. Thinking it would be about six weeks before he could return, it was six months before Yono was able to rejoin the ship with a 10-month contract. As his final contract was nearing its end in spring 1978, Donna shared the news of her marriage with her family and left Southampton to move back to Amsterdam to make peace. Yono left the ship in May 1978 and moved to Albany where he and Donna began their married life together. “In a bit of an O.Henry-esque twist, I looked into the process of becoming a member of the ship’s entertainment staff as Yono was working on finalizing his departure from the ship for good,” Donna said.

With worldwide hospitality experience, Yono immediately secured a front-of-the-house job at an Albany hotel restaurant, starting on the bottom rung of a career ladder that turned out to be an exceptionally sturdy one with many extensions that over time, soared into the air.

While working at the hotel, he met Jim Rua who owned Casa Verde in Albany. Soon Yono was working for Jim in his dining room, multitasking as a sommelier, a maître’d, and member of the service staff. There he met Dr. Joel Spiro who, along with a group of local gourmands, established Chaine’s Albany Bailliage in 1977. Dr. Spiro served as its first Bailli for the next 18 years.

Dr. Spiro came into Casa Verde with longtime friend and Chaîne member, Michael O’Higgins, who noticed Yono and began speaking Indonesian with him, having learned the language when his father was stationed in Indonesia and Singapore while working for an oil company.

New to the United States, Yono made an immediate connection with Dr. Spiro and eventually the Chaîne des Rôtisseurs. “There’s a lot of almost impossible sounding things that have happened in our lifetime,” Donna said.

From Casa Verde, Yono accepted a job at Albany’s 21 Club restaurant, located in a restored Victorian home. In 1983, Yono and Donna took another leap of faith when they had the opportunity to lease the restaurant and operate it themselves.

“We did it. The first six months were fine. And then one night, my chef tapped me on the shoulder and said if he didn’t get a raise, he was going to quit,” and Yono replied, “Let’s finish the shift and then we can talk.” But the chef said no and walked out the door.

“This was my expression – Holy S*@!,” Yono recalls. At this pivotal moment, Yono was about to take the first step to elevate his hospitality career into the rarefied air of top tier culinary professionals. Yono knew there was no looking back. Without a scintilla of self pity, his only option was to forge ahead with a confident, positive attitude. “I believe in America. If you dream big, you work hard, God willing, you make it. This is my thinking, my philosophy,” Yono said.

Yono helped his staff finish dinner service. Then he called everyone into the dining room for a meeting after the restaurant closed for the evening. He popped the cork on a bottle of Dom Perignon, thanked them for a job well done, told them his chef quit, and that he would be taking over the kitchen.

At 6 a.m. the next morning, Yono was at the market and by 9 a.m., was in the kitchen cooking. “I never knew how to even boil water. That’s the truth. But I had to do what I had to do,” he said.

Giving new meaning to “on-the-job training,” Yono immersed himself in learning how to excel in the kitchen by studying; seeking out mentors; joining many culinary associations, including the Chaîne des Rôtisseurs in 1984; and following his instinct to add Indonesian spices and ingredients to traditional American dishes. He recalls making an Indonesian rendang sauce for his filet mignon with foie gras, fusing cuisines before anyone was calling it fusion. His customers loved it.

As Yono honed his culinary skills, another crisis occurred in December 1985 when the restaurant went up in flames just before New Year’s Eve. Against all odds and because of an efficient contractor, they reopened six weeks later but the new beginning was short-lived. A New York City investment group bought the building and immediately raised rent to an unrealistic $8,000 per month. Donna and Yono wished them well.

1986 – Yono’s Opens

They had no choice but to start all over again at a new location, adding another extension to their career ladder. With help from a friend, they found an historic building at 289 Hamilton Street. They spent the summer of 1986 cleaning and getting ready to open their new culinary adventure. On Sept. 26, 1986, Yono’s, a fine dining restaurant with 20 tables in the tri-level space, opened for business with 80 percent of their employees from 21 following them.

In a few weeks, Yono’s will celebrate 38 years in business.

With two young children, Yono and Donna burned the midnight oil in those early years balancing family and business responsibilities. Yet Yono never stopped learning and advancing his skills. In 1989, he decided it was time to take another leap in the culinary industry to earn his chef credential through the American Culinary Federation (ACF) certification program. Yono describes the process of testing for his Certified Executive Chef (CEC) certification as “brutal.” But he made it. He then earned his Certified Food and Beverage Executive (CFBE) credential.

Recognition and awards followed rapidly. He was named the ACF Albany Chef of the Year in 1988. In 1991, he received the Medal of Honor from Les Amis D’Escoffier and an ACF Gold Medal. Yono was now standing on top of his career ladder but never lost sight of those starting as he did on the bottom rung and the importance of giving back to his local community.

In 2006, Yono, Donna, and Dominck, their son who is a sommelier, after having been courted by a developer, relocated Yono’s, and at the same time opened dp, an American Brasserie, in the Downtown Albany Hampton Inn and Suites at 25 Chapel Street.

What an honor for Yono and Donna to have the City of Albany name Chapel Street the “Chef Yono & Donna Purnomo Way.”

Mentoring Young Chefs

Mentoring young chefs has been integral to his life as a chef. “You can look like a chef in five minutes. But it takes a lifetime to become one. Being a mentor, a teacher, an advisor – that’s a chef to me,” Yono said.

For years, he has mentored young chefs in Chaîne’s Northeast Province for the Jeunes Chefs Rôtisseurs (JCR) Competition. Two of his students advanced to become JCR national champions and in 2021, Gabrielle O’Neil, who won both the Northeast Province and National Competitions, represented the USA in Paris. Realizing young chefs need financial support, he set up his own Foundation to help students at two schools in the United States – SUNY (State University of New York) Cobleskill and SUNY Schenectady – and at his alma mater in Bangdung, Indonesia. As a longtime Chaîne member, he is proud of Chaîne’s financial support for young chefs so they can afford to travel and compete on the national level.

In 2021, The State University of New York (SUNY) conferred upon Yono an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Humane Letters.

Yono recently returned from Seattle where he was a judge at Chaîne’s 2024 Jeunes Chefs Rôtisseurs Competition.

His involvement this year was a testament to his unwavering dedication to his profession even when confronted with some physical limitations as a recent kidney transplant recipient. After one year on dialysis due to kidney failure in 2023, his family and the Albany community rallied to spread the word on social media that Yono, a beloved Albany chef, needed a kidney. The gift of life came in April 2024 when New York Presbyterian Hospital notified him a live donor from the Albany area, who had come forward on his behalf, was a perfect match. Yono had two weeks notice to prepare for transplant surgery.

“For me, I’m so honored and blessed,” Yono said. “I’m doing good. I flew to Seattle.” Still a little tired but always looking on the bright side of things, his daily dose of 43 pills has been reduced to 24 so he is thankful he is recovering well.

Future of Fine Dining

As positive as Yono’s nature is, he is concerned about the future of fine dining. A perfect storm of fallout from the pandemic with people continuing to work from home, higher food costs, and higher labor costs is making it difficult for many restaurants to stay afloat let alone realize a profit. Finding employees is increasingly becoming difficult as well, Yono explained.

“To me, though education is important, it is not the only factor. If you come to me, I’m not looking at where you graduated from. I want a good attitude and common sense because I cannot change your attitude but I can teach you cooking. Show me, don’t tell me. If you can do what we do here, you’re hired,” he said, adding that some culinarians out of school today want to make $100,000 immediately. “That is unrealistic right out of the gate and must be earned,” Yono said.

He has sage advice for young chefs.

“We crawl first. And then we walk. And then we walk faster. And then we can run but it’s impossible to be born and run, right? Don’t think about money first. Think about your career first, your knowledge, your confidence, and then money will come. I did it. Be positive.”

Another storm cloud overhead is the 20 to 25 percent decline in enrollment nationwide in culinary schools. Yono said enrollment was high years ago when celebrity chefs inspired many young men and women to pursue a culinary career but that is not the case today. “Normally, we have the best of the best but now my standards are lower because you can’t get people. It’s a challenge getting qualified people; everybody, it’s not just me. It’s kind of sad,” he said.

He fondly recalls the old days when men were required to wear a jacket to dine but today, nobody wants to dress up for dinner. Lack of formality is not on anyone’s radar though. Yono boils down success in operating a fine dining restaurant to two basic tenets: 1) Restaurants must be authentic and consistent because customers are very knowledgeable and travel the world, and 2) Service is tantamount because even if the food is not quite 100 percent, customers will come back if the service is excellent. If the food is great and the service inferior, they will often not return.

Even with modern day challenges, opportunity and innovation will always propel young and old alike to excellence and success.

“You have to be ready to take a chance because life is too short. You fail, you get up. You fail, you get up again – as long as you don’t make the same mistake over and over again. We learn from our mistakes. That is the best way to learn,” he said.

From the moment he boarded the SS Rotterdam in the 1970s, Yono’s life adventure has been defined by his internal compass always pointing in a positive direction no matter the adversity. He readily says he is living the American dream and wants others, especially young chefs, to experience it as well.

It may take a Jules Verne adventure for young chefs to break through today but life lessons from Yono will confidently launch them on their own culinary trip around the world – and to the top of their career ladders.

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Joel Spiro – A Life Well Lived

Links

Yono’s
dp, an American Brassiere
SUNY Cobleskill
SUNY Schenectady