Pastry Director

Michael Werrell

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Michael Werrell is the Pastry Director of The Continental, working alongside Keaton Vasek to bring the pastry program to life at Chef Sean Brock’s ode to contemporary, hotel fine dining. 

Born and raised in New Jersey, Michael was raised by a family that loved to cook and supported his decision to follow his culinary dreams from an early age. In fact, it was his mother that first introduced him to the basics of cooking at home before he officially began his career at The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY, where he studied baking and pastry arts. After graduating, Werrell went on to be the Pastry Sous Chef at the heralded Eleven Madison Park and Dominique Ansel Bakery, rising through the ranks and embracing mentorship to expand his knowledge and fine-tune his craft. Over the years, Werrell has mastered an attention to detail and defined his pastry style as clean, crisp, and intentional. He has an uncanny ability to put a modern, creative twist on childhood favorites, which even won him the Food Network pastry competition show Rewrapped in 2014 

In 2020, Werrell moved to Nashville to join Chef Sean Brock to lead the pastry program for all three of Brock’s restaurants, The Continental, Audrey, and Joyland. Werrell also is the co-owner of Trēt Baking Co, a pastry pop-up shop in Nashville focusing on small batch, craft goods that rotate based on seasonality.