A Little Info…

David Brode is by no means your average chef. He is cool under pressure, unfazed by stresses of the kitchen, and appreciates simple ingredients just as much as white truffles and caviar. Just as comfortable cooking a beer-can-chicken on the grill with friends or preparing a ten-course dinner for top business executives, chef David has a broad range of experiences.

David was born and raised in the northern suburbs of Chicago. Food was always a curiosity when he was young, although it took a few years to come to the forefront. Working in the environmental restoration and sailing worlds, food was definitely not the first priority. Yet his hard work ethic was apparent as he started his first job at the young age of twelve. The earliest food experiences to make lasting impressions were trips with his mom to local farmers markets, cooking with his grandmother, and traveling to many food-centric places like Pikes Place Market in Seattle.

After a few years in and out of universities due to boredom, David decided to visit friends overseas. On one such trip, after a few months bicycling through southern Spain, David realized that food was too much a part of life to not be cooking.

Upon arrival back to the US, he immediately enrolled in the Le Cordon Bleu in his hometown of Chicago. His passion for food and perfecting his techniques flourished. Post graduation he decided to apprentice at an old fashioned fine dining French restaurant, Carlos’. Enjoying the personal feel of the standby three star restaurant, and the eclectic long time staff, he decided to stay for more than three years.

An opportunity to design and run his own series of cooking classes came along, through which he landed a private chef position with a prominent Chicago family. This whirlwind job took him everywhere… multiple homes, yachts, jets, and international travel, to designing ideal home kitchens. Reveling the ability to play with all sorts of ingredients and types of cuisines and formats, the chef found a huge creative outlet.

This chef’s biggest passion in life are great ingredients. To browse though a local market is total bliss. To bring the bounty of the market in to the kitchen becomes a heavenly challenge. To serve deliciously prepared food to others is the ultimate pleasure.

But the inner travel junkie has persisted and drove him to pack his bags once again. With an enormous appetite for the new and different, the tried and true of Europe’s great cuisines, he embarked on a culinary tour of Europe. The premise was simple; To eat at the best restaurants, and the quaint time-tested traditional establishments in all of the major food regions of France, Italy and Spain. To accompany all the good grub, he also visited about 60 of the best wineries in Europe to wet his whistle and expand his knowledge of the great wines of Europe.

What’s next??… Asia. Full of countless cuisines, ingredients, and local food cultures.

As you can see from the new pages on the site, Asia was a mind bender of a place. So many people, places, cuisines, ingredients, traditions…! Forever changing this chefs idea on food and culture, as well as expanding the palate immensely.