Born and raised on the outskirts of Strasbourg in Alsace, France, Jean-Georges’ earliest family memories are about food. The Vongerichten home centered around the kitchen, where each day his mother and grandmother would prepare lunch for the almost 50 employees in their family-owned business. "I would wake every morning to the most wonderful smells", reminisces Jean-Georges "and I quickly became known as ‘The Palate’ to my family, tasting each sauce and dish, recommending salt or...some more herbs." His love for food cemented into his choice for a career at the age of 16, when his parents brought him to the 3-star Michelin-rated Auberge de l’IIl for a birthday dinner.

Jean-Georges began his training soon after in a work-study program at the Auberge de l'III as an apprentice to Chef Paul Haeberlin. He went on to work with the top chefs in France, including Paul Bocuse and Louis Outhier at L’Oasis in the south of France. With this impressive three-star Michelin training, Jean-Georges won a position at the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok. From 1980 to 1985, he opened 10 restaurants around the world, including the Meridien Hotel in Singapore and the Mandarin Hotel in Hong-Kong; it was during this time spent in Asia that Jean-Georges developed his love for the exotic and aromatic flavors of the Far East.

Jean-Georges arrived in the United States in 1985, opening the Lafayette restaurant in Boston. A year later he arrived in New York to take over the executive Chef position at Lafayette in the Drake Swissôtel, dazzling guests with his innovative interpretation of classic French cuisine and earning four stars from The New York Times at the age of 29. In the first of many bold moves that have established him as a culinary trend setter, Jean-Georges traded this formal dining room for paper-clothed tables, and opened his charming bistro JoJo in 1991.

At JoJo he introduced us to his ‘vibrant and spare cuisine’ whose intense flavors and satisfying textures he created by eschewing traditional meat stocks for vegetable juices and fruit essences, light broth and herbal vinaigrettes. JoJo was named Best New Restaurant of the Year, and earned three stars from The New York Times, in which Ruth Reichl summed up his contemporary French cuisine in the sentence "His food took my breath away".

His next venture, Vong, paid homage to his passion for the spices and flavors of the East. Using over 150 different herbs and spices to create his unique take on Thai-inspired French cuisine, the menu at Vong wowed both critics and patrons, earning yet another three-star review from The New York Times for his "explosive flavorful food". This experience was followed by other "Wong"
in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Hong Kong,  and in Chicago.

In March of 1997, Jean-Georges opened Jean-Georges Restaurant in the Trump International Hotel and Tower,