Chef Ben Dinsmore’s culinary adventure started when he took a kitchen job as a 16-year old growing up in New York City. He broke up briefly from cuisine to attend Rhode Island College, where he earned a degree in social work. He worked with mainly non-verbal autistic children for a year, and picked up part-time jobs in restaurants to relax and unwind. It was during these moments that he realized his passions lie in the kitchen. He studied at Johnson & Wales and spent the next 10 years at restaurants in Rhode Island, learning everything he could about about seafood. Stints at Altanta’s Ford Fry, JCT.Kitchen& Bar and BeetleCat fully schooled him in the canon of Southern cuisine. Dinsmore joined The Darling in January, and considers it an opportunity to synthesize his career in seafood, Southern cuisine, and hospitality. While he doesn’t have a signature dish, he is driven by a guiding philosophy: “I love taking fancy, intimidating dishes and making them more approachable, so that anyone will try them. That fuels me.”