Alexander Russell, a chef who began working in restaurants as a teenager in East Hampton and went on to work in kitchens from Japan to Florida to New Orleans to Zurich as well as on two yachts, died on New Year’s Day in Sag Harbor. A stroke was suspected, but he had a number of health issues. He was 55.
For the past 10 years, he had been a chef at Page at 63 Main in Sag Harbor, where he was “a valued member of the Page family,” said Eric Peele, the restaurant’s director of operations. “Alex was easy to get along with,” he said, describing his friend and co-worker as “very likable and approachable and kind.” He lived in an apartment above the restaurant. “We will miss him and his easy smile,” Mr. Peele said.
Mr. Russell was born in New Jersey on Sept. 19, 1967, to Franklin Russell, a writer, and the former Jacqueline Scully. He was born with a condition that required multiple surgeries when he was very young. He lost one kidney and had medical problems throughout his life.
He grew up in New Jersey, East Hampton, and Amagansett.
His mother, who died when he was a child, taught him to cook. In a letter to a friend, he wrote that he remembered her being “either in the garden or in the kitchen. If I found her in the kitchen, I was put to work and enjoyed every minute helping my mom prepare complex and exotic meals. She was an exceptional gourmet and taught me about the cuisines of different countries.”
His father’s work as a writer took the family around the world. “Adults were shocked to see a boy of 6 . . . dive into a plate of curry in India or bravely experiment with an odd tribal delicacy in Africa. . . . As a tribute to my mother I pursued a career as a chef.” His love of cooking, he wrote, “was only overshadowed by a deep desire to continue the travels of my childhood.”
He began working in kitchens while he was still a student at East Hampton High School and by the time he was 22 had worked at restaurants including Little Rock Rodeo, Fresno Place, the Laundry, and the Blue Parrot. He cooked at Kansai, a restaurant in Tokyo, taught “American cooking” in that city, and in the early 1990s was a sous-chef at Cafe L’Europe in Palm Beach, Fla., and a chef at Bastille in New Orleans.
In 1994, while taking a break from restaurants and working as a carpenter, his friend Sean Scanlon introduced him to the captain of the yacht Cortina, who asked Mr. Russell if he wanted to help get it ready for a trip to Florida. He would live aboard the yacht while the captain was on vacation and eventually was hired to cook full time on the Cortina as it sailed to Florida, the Bahamas, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, and up and down the East Coast.
“My dream unfolded in front of me, and the next seven years were more enjoyable than I could ever have possibly imagined,” he wrote to a friend. “I have as many friends here as almost anywhere in the world,” he said of the Bahamas, which he appreciated for the natural beauty and the people.
After his time on the Cortina, he worked at a restaurant in Zurich and then as a private chef on the yacht True North in Florida and the United States Virgin Islands. He lived in Phoenix and Florida for a time before returning to the South Fork to live briefly with his father.
In recent years, he not only found his restaurant family at Page, but also found a community of friends through online video gaming.
“He was friendly, sensitive, engaging, and big-hearted, with a boisterous sense of humor and an infectious laugh,” his friends and former stepbrothers Rossa Cole and Williams Cole wrote. He enjoyed music and literature and was a gifted performer who liked participating in school productions so much that he considered a career in acting.
As a child he appeared in commercials for cough medicine in Canada and had a brief run on the soap opera “Ryan’s Hope.” He went to every audition at Guild Hall in East Hampton “and read for every play at whatever school I was in.” In the summer of 1982 he joined a summer theater program in England that allowed him to study with the Royal Shakespeare Company and to perform at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Mr. Russell’s father died in 2019. In addition to Rossa Cole of North Haven and Williams Cole of Brooklyn, he is survived by a half brother, Michael Moore of San Francisco.
He was cremated, and his ashes will be spread at sea.
A memorial will be held at Page in early May. Contributions in his memory have been suggested to the food pantry at the Children’s Museum of the East End, P.O. Box 316, Bridgehampton 11932.
