Alex Gray wants to be “that guy.”

As executive chef of the President’s Cottage and sous chef at the Athenaeum Hotel, Gray will do any task, help any employee and cook any dish to the best of his ability.

“If it needs to be done, I’ll do it. I think the phrase ‘that guy’ has gotten poor feedback in the past, but I like to be that guy,” Gray said. “I want people to look around for me, not look around me.”

Gray, returning for his third season at Chautauqua, is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, and first discovered the Institution while working at the nearby restaurant La Fleur during his college years. La Fleur is also where he met current executive chef of the Athenaeum Hotel, Ross Warhol, also a Culinary Institute of America graduate.