Meet Joshua

For Joshua Lanning, cooking has never been about chasing trends or accolades. It has always been about place, about building something meaningful where it matters, and creating food that connects people to memory, season, and community.

That philosophy sits at the heart of BrightSide Kitchen, Lanning’s culinary platform based in Peoria, Illinois. More than a restaurant concept, BrightSide Kitchen is an ecosystem. It is a home for multiple food projects, a testing ground for ideas, and a commitment to building thoughtful, enduring hospitality in a city Lanning believes deserves it.

Lanning’s career has taken him through some of the most demanding kitchens in the world. He trained at the French Culinary Institute in New York, cooked at acclaimed restaurants including Del Posto, Casa Mono, and Quality Meats, and later staged at Noma in Copenhagen. That experience reshaped his understanding of discipline, creativity, and ingredient driven cooking. He went on to spend five years at Michelin three star SingleThread in Healdsburg, California, working closely with chef Kyle Connaughton as the restaurant defined its voice at the intersection of cuisine, agriculture, and hospitality.

Later, Lanning served as culinary director and close collaborator to chef Sean Brock in Nashville, helping oversee new ventures, menu development, and quality control across Brock’s growing portfolio. Throughout these years, one through line remained constant. A belief that the most powerful food is rooted in context, its land, its people, and its story.

That belief ultimately brought Lanning home.

Returning to Peoria, where his culinary instincts were first shaped by family meals and Midwestern generosity, Lanning founded BrightSide Kitchen as a way to apply everything he had learned without importing a coastal model that did not fit. His goal is not to replicate fine dining in miniature, but to build thoughtful, accessible concepts that feel native to the region, grounded in craft, care, and seasonality.

The starting concepts within BrightSide Kitchen include Bright O Bagels, focused on hand rolled, boiled, and baked bagels; Brightbelly Ramen, centered on deeply crafted broths and fresh noodles; and BrightBird Chicken Sandwich, a fried chicken sandwich concept built on technique, restraint, and flavor rather than gimmicks. Each concept stands on its own, yet all are unified by shared standards. Scratch cooking, clear systems, respect for ingredients, and hospitality that feels genuine rather than performative. The platform also allows Lanning to incubate ideas slowly and intentionally, letting the community shape what grows next.

While his background includes deep experience with live fire and barbecue, skills passed down from his late father and honed through years of practice, that tradition now lives as one part of a broader culinary language. At BrightSide Kitchen, fire might be used to finish vegetables, deepen broths, or reimagine familiar flavors, always in service of balance rather than nostalgia alone.

Today, Lanning is focused on building something lasting in Peoria. A culinary presence that supports local producers, creates meaningful jobs, and gives the city a food culture it can claim as its own. BrightSide Kitchen is both a reflection of his journey and a commitment to staying put, to investing time, energy, and care into a place that shaped him.

“Years ago, I told myself I needed to go work for the best,” Lanning says, “so that when it was time to build something of my own, I would be ready.”

BrightSide Kitchen is that work. Rooted, evolving, and intentionally home.

Joshua’s foundation as a chef may be in fine dining, but the backbone of his childhood was shaped by Midwestern and Southern fare

…especially his mom’s fried chicken and meatloaf, his grandma’s incomparable dinner rolls and chocolate pie, and of course, his dad’s barbecue. It wasn’t until he was 19, though, that he really took to cooking. He’d spend hours in bookstores, hunkered down in the cookbook section, poring over tomes, especially those by Jacques Pepin. One of the first recipes he ever attempted was Pepin’s pate de choux swans adorned with fanciful caramel cages – which he jokes took him an entire day. 

Even so, he knew then and there that he wanted to be a chef. So much so that he made his way to New York City specifically to enroll at the French Culinary Institute, where Pepin was a dean. Meeting his idol was a highlight, as was getting the opportunity to work at such renowned New York establishments as Quality Meats and Casa Mono, before getting hired at Del Posto. 

After eating his way through a barbecue festival in New York in 2006, Joshua realized that the brisket and ribs he grew up on were just as impressive, and encouraged his father to start competing. The next thing he knew, his dad was going up against some of the most seasoned barbecue competitors in the country, and even winning a couple of competitions. 

Meantime, Joshua was on his own remarkable ride, first working as a line cook at The Kitchen in Boulder, where he learned to forge tight bonds with local farmers to procure the best and freshest ingredients; then as a sous chef and pastry chef at the acclaimed June restaurant in Peoria. 

Emboldened perhaps by a beer or two one day, he took the liberty of emailing Noma restaurant out of the blue after growing entranced by its stunning cookbook.

He never expected a reply back, but after pouring his heart into the note, he received an invitation to stage. Maxing out his credit cards, he made the journey. It proved a seminal experience. He learned that not only could he survive in a kitchen that pushed its crew to the brink, but flourish like never before. 

That newfound confidence stayed with him when he came back to the United States for a spell to work before returning to Copenhagen to stage at the well-regarded Amass. When a St. Louis Chef later introduced him to Kyle Connaughton, who was building an ambitious restaurant, inn and farm known as SingleThread, Lanning knew he had finally met someone to call a mentor. 

He packed his Ford Focus and drove to Northern California, where he initially worked as a line cook at noted AQ Restaurant in San Francisco, as construction continued on SingleThread. When its opening finally loomed, Joshua cooked private dinners alongside Connaughton to stoke anticipation and define the experience. 

Toward the end of Joshua’s five-year tenure at SingleThread, his father passed away.

To honor him, he decided to tow his dad’s barbecue rig from Illinois to California, and along the way, to compete in his first barbecue competition, the prestigious Praise the Lard Barbecue Cook-Off in Murphysboro, IL, one that his dad had never entered. Joshua ended up proudly garnering third place in the brisket category. 

He joined Haus Beverage, an artisan aperitif company in Healdsburg, as research and development chef before home began to beckon. With a family of his own now, including two young daughters, he moved to Nashville in late 2020 to be culinary director for Brock’s company, becoming his right-hand man to help oversee new ventures and projects, as well as menu development and quality control. 

With his return to Peoria, Joshua’s life has come full circle. He’s passionate about cooking the best version of the food he grew up with along with more progressive yet still accessible dishes. He wants to contribute to the local community, give back life lessons and partner with individuals who have similar values. 

“Years ago, I told myself that I was going to go work for the best, so when the time came to choose what I wanted to do, I would be ready and do it well,’’ he says. “This is exactly what I’ve worked for.’’

“Josh Lanning is a talented and incredibly versatile chef. 

I had the pleasure of working with him for several years in opening and running SingleThread, taking us from a construction project to a Three Michelin Starred restaurant in just two years. Josh is a thoughtful leader, a true mentor to those he's leading and has a teamwork and collaborative mentality. 

One of Josh's truly unique gifts is his ability to master cuisine from the Three Michelin Star level to very casual cooking. He's as passionate about top level cooking in the world's best restaurants where he's been as he is about BBQ and casual, approachable cuisine. 

His exceptional level of integrity, honesty, and commitment to his craft make him a true leader in our industry."

— Kyle Connaughton, Chef and Owner at SingleThread Farms