Victoria James
Victoria James is the Executive Director of Beverage and a Founding Partner at Gracious Hospitality Management, the restaurant group behind Michelin-starred COTE in NYC, Miami, Singapore, their newest Champagne & Fried chicken concept in NYC – COQODAQ, the cocktail bar, UNDERCOTE, and COTE WINE CLUB. Her beverage programs have received James Beard nominations for "Outstanding Wine Program" and she has personally received the rare Michelin Sommelier of the Year Award in 2022.VJ has worked in restaurants since she was thirteen, fell in love with wine while bartending in college and when she was twenty-one became certified as a sommelier, the youngest in the country at the time.
Breaking Down With Victoria James
“Wake up at 8:20 AM JK. I wish I woke up at this time– in reality, 6:00AM. I’m up much earlier because I have a kid… And well, she controls EVERYTHING. We have a couple of hours together and those are my favorite moments of the day. We make a smoothie together, my partner makes coffee, and then we water all our rooftop and balcony gardens before biking over to school.”
“After school drop-off it’s time to crush emails, I usually get around 500+ a day. So I try to whittle down my inbox or organize them in To-Do’s for the day before I vespa into the office in Flatiron from my Greenpoint apartment. The tsunami of emails used to give me such anxiety but one of the great gifts of becoming a mum is like, everything is chill now in comparison. Hundreds of emails? No big deal. Just take it one at a time.”
“First up, non-GHM umbrella, but with my business partners Simon Kim and Amy Zhou we have a board meeting for our 501c3 non-profit I co-founded back in 2018 called Wine Empowered. Wine Empowered offers tuition-free wine classes to women and BIPOC to diversify the upper ranks of leadership in hospitality. Essentially, Wine Empowered was created by us three young female sommeliers that were never taken seriously, and our goal was to burst into the Old Boy’s Club and shake things up. And that’s what we did!”
“People joke around that GHM (Gracious Hospitality Management) actually stands for Gotta Have a Meeting, and they’re not all that wrong. Every day I am booked solid during these hours, often double-booked. Ops meetings! GHM Partners meetings! Monthly leadership financial reviews! Beverage Purchasing Budgeting (my job = overseeing buying and selling millions of dollars’ worth of booze)! Expansion project meetings (we’re opening COTE Vegas next year, and another upcoming HUGE project in NYC afterwards). Unless you’re my kid’s school, I’m ignoring all calls during these hours. Sorry!”
“I vespa quickly down to our retail partner for COTE WINE CLUB, Convive Wine & Spirits in the East Village because we just got in another shipment of my first book, Drink Pink, A Celebration of Rosé, and I need to sign them all for our rosé box. You can buy it! You should! I wrote funny inscriptions in some of them to keep me awake. Some of them are borderline, maybe not appropriate, but – you’ll have to buy them to see for yourself.”
“I don’t care what anybody says. The best thing about being a restaurateur, or really having two restaurants a block apart means TWO FAMILY MEALS. Chef David Shim and his team at COTE Korean Steakhouse, and Chef SK Kim and his team at COQODAQ always Hook. It. Up. Chef SK made Korean street food today, and it seriously slaps. When we post the meal to our Slack Channels everyone gets *serious* FOMO who isn’t there – including our GHM leadership team. So I bring some back to the GHM office for them. Two things I will say about this 1) I love people that love food. I remember vividly almost a decade ago when I first started working for Simon Kim (the founder & CEO of Gracious Hospitality Management), he paused a *kind of very important* meeting because he was hungry and wanted lunch. I was like - wow, I love this guy. And we got lunch! And the meeting afterwards was way better! 2) Also amazing that our GHM offices and two NYC restaurants are all within a five block radius of one another. I often call it the GHM Bermuda Triangle because there is always a Director or Partner that’s lost somewhere in the middle.”
“I vespa back to Brooklyn and pick up my daughter from school. We usually go to the park to get the wiggles out if it’s nice or go to the library for a bit. As a working mum I always want to maximize every moment with her, so I try to fully be present and not on my phone – so again, not seeing your calls or emails! Then we make dinner or we go out for a bite (today we went to a local spot where she wanted both a hand roll AND noodles – I get it, sometimes you can’t choose!), bathtime and try to get her in bed so she’s asleep by 8pm. I usually go back to the restaurants around this time to work service once she’s asleep. Don’t worry, I of course don’t leave her alone!”
“I’m usually back and forth between COTE & COQODAQ since they’re a block apart, and prioritize whichever spot needs more assistance that evening. Although I’m not in the restaurants as much as I used to be when we first opened COTE in NYC (which now has locations in Miami and Singapore) almost a decade ago, I still love popping into them and being a part of the energy and team. It’s the most rewarding part of my job. Crushing spreadsheets and sitting in meetings keeps the business running but making customers happy at our tables is truly the most joyful of joyful experiences. I don’t care what anyone says, I’m always happy to bus tables and bring someone ice cubes for their Pinot Grigio. Put me in, coach!”