When Chicago native Donald Young first stepped into the kitchen at Le Francais as a 17-year-old, he still had a preference for only ordering “very plain” burgers with ketchup, mustard, and cheese. The only time he ever really used a knife was peeling potatoes for Thanksgiving and Christmas family meals. But what began as a reluctant job quickly blossomed into a lifelong passion, propelling Young on a journey that would lead him to being one of the youngest chefs to be awarded a Michelin star in the U.S., creating an innovative pop-up fine-dining concept, and being nominated for a James Beard Award.
Young’s first job, however, was at a Culver’s when he turned 16—a common milestone for any kid growing up in the Midwest. “I was working 45 hours a week while going to high school. I had no social life, basically,” he recalls. “I started off putting everything on my burger at Culver’s when I went on break to force myself to start liking onions and lettuce and tomatoes. Pickles took a while to get used to, but eventually I fell in love with pickles.” (That forced penchant for pickles eventually paid off, in that he ended up utilizing a lot of pickled ingredients at Duck Sel to add complexity and brightness to dishes.)
Young went from downing SpaghettiOs and Chef Boyardee cans for dinner to working under award-winning chef Roland Liccioni at Le Francais, the famed Chicagoland French restaurant opened by legendary French-American chef Jean Banchet. His father worked as a manager at a bar and restaurant, and one of his reps worked at Le Francais back in the ‘90s and had a connection—so Young was convinced to go meet Liccioni and work a day for free to see how he liked it. “During that time, that’s when I was really into heavy metal, and in high school wore all black, had big curly long hair, had a metal chain wallet, all that kind of stuff. I was a punk a** little kid, for sure, but Roland took the chance on me, surprisingly,” he says.
While pursuing a degree in culinary arts at Chicago’s Kendall College, Young secured a six-month internship in Castres, France, where he studied under acclaimed chef Simon Scott at Michelin-starred Bistrot Saveurs, sparking a deep love for French cuisine. It was during this time that Young’s culinary vision truly began to take shape, as he immersed himself in the world of modern French cooking and spent time further refining his techniques and flavor profiles.
Throughout his early career, he worked closely with his mentor, Liccioni, rising through top Chicago kitchens, including Miramar Bistro and Les Nomades. By 2018 at age 28, Young became the youngest chef in Chicago at the time to earn a Michelin star at Temporis, a progressive, 20-seat American fine-dining restaurant offering a 10-course tasting menu each evening.
“It was an honor and a jump start to my career,” Young says. He later led WoodWind on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile epicenter in 2019, and then got furloughed when the pandemic hit. “I got brought back for two weeks, and let go after the restaurant was opened and functioning again, which kind of let me where I’m at today with Duck Sel. It was the start of Duck Sel there.”
Young set out to create a dining experience that was equal parts elevated and approachable, where the focus was on exceptional food, personable service, and a genuine connection between the chef and his guests—which led to Duck Sel, originally called Salted Duck, that was born as a small pop-up in 2016. Branching off of his Instagram handle (@DonaldDuckConfit), the name Duck Sel came from a cross of a duck and the French word for salt, “sel.” Young was also inspired by a poster he had up in his room that had the chemical formula NaCl, commonly known as table salt.
A few of Young’s former customers from Temporis had asked him to host a private dinner in their home, and after a few successful dinners, he decided to post pictures and videos of the experience on social media, and it took off from there. His private dinner format began building momentum as families started telling their friends about the experience, which involves a 15-course tasting menu where modern meets classical. Young seamlessly blends his Midwestern roots with elevated French techniques and an unwavering dedication to all things duck.
Though Young is always changing up the tasting menu, one dish that remains constant “and will never change” is the Duck & Waffles. The dish features a liege-style waffle enriched with duck fat instead of butter, accompanied with dry-aged duck confit nuggets that are tempura fried, pickled blueberries, a black truffle maple syrup, a French butter that he cuts with duck fat, and a little bit of sumac. It’s then finished off with a maple ice cream twist on Dippin’ Dots. “Kind of that hot, cold, little sweet, and salty to it. It’s a dish we put in the middle of the menu to act as a savory palate cleanser that refreshes your palate in that sense,” he explains. This dish is presented right before the last two savory dishes in the menu, and has quickly become a crowd favorite.
Young also likes to incorporate playful twists on some of the food he grew up eating, like the final course that harkens back to his first job. It’s a riff on a Culver’s concrete mixer, served in a bag with Duck Sel’s logo. The concrete is placed inside the bag and smoked with cherry wood, then brought to the guest. Once the bag is opened, the smoke is released, giving guests the feeling of being around a campfire. Inside is a chocolate & passion fruit custard that has Valrhona Dulcey chocolate cookie dough mixed in; a few different chocolates on top that taste like Reese’s peanut butter; passion fruit pearls to enhance the passion fruit on the dish and to add more acidity to cut the richness; and a honey and graham cracker meringue on top that is brûléed.
“Duck Sel has gone way above than I ever expected it to be. We’re having fun, doing what we love, and cooking the food that we want to cook,” Young says. “I’m curious to see what are the boundaries Duck Sel can break, being a pop-up and a private chef, because I think it’s overlooked in general over many different awards. I think it was wild to get the James Beard nomination for being a private chef, but at the same time, why has no one ever been nominated for that?”
When asked if he’s ever considered transitioning Duck Sel into a brick-and-mortar restaurant, Young says the thought is always there and is a dream one day, but he’s in no rush to get there. “With the way Duck Sel is going right now, we’re having a lot of fun with it, and there’s a lot more control,” he says. “The hardest part about Duck Sel becoming brick-and-mortar is how to create this concept in a more professional, commercialized space, and that’s the biggest thing that’s holding me back—how we create it for the future to stay the same with the same charm.”
One key to Duck Sel’s success that makes it stand out from other pop-up concepts is how Young serves fine-dining food, but in a relaxed setting without the “super fine-dining ego and staleness, in my opinion,” he says. The other piece is all about giving guests a chance to connect and share in a communal experience together. With two tables that seat 10 people each, guests are sitting with up to eight strangers, which organically forces people to chat and joke around—including with the servers. “I’m not going to scold you for that—I would rather see backhanded service and the guests laughing and joking around with you, because that to me is better service than trying to be so robotic,” Young adds. “There’s more personality, essentially. We’re trying to keep it like a large dinner party with great food, music, and all that.”
