Moncef Meddeb (died March 26, 2019) was an American chef and founder of L'Espalier Boston's first Le Cordon Bleu restaurant. [1]
Meddeb, the son of Tunisian immigrants, grew up in Paris. [2] He emigrated to the United States in the late 1960s. He met Suzanne Owen, a Peace Corps volunteer, while he was in Tunis and working in a bank. They married and moved in with her father in Connecticut. He attended the University of Connecticut before transferring to Harvard College and graduating with a political science degree. His first cooking job was when he was at Harvard, working at the Harvard Square restaurant Casablanca. Another source says his first job was at the adjacent Algiers Cafe as a dishwasher. [2] He later worked as the Main Chef at 7 Central in Manchester by the sea. He opened L'Espalier in 1978 selling it to Frank McClelland in 1988. [3] He opened the restaurant 8 Holyoke in Cambridge and Aigo Bistro in Concord, Massachusetts where he hired Ana Sortun. [1] [4]
^Who’s Who of Food & Beverage in America, James Beard Foundation 1985 [1]
Gordon James Ramsay is a British celebrity chef, restaurateur, television presenter, and writer. His restaurant group, Gordon Ramsay Restaurants, was founded in 1997 and has been awarded 17 Michelin stars overall and currently holds eight. His signature restaurant, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea, London, has held three Michelin stars since 2001. After rising to fame on the British television miniseries Boiling Point in 1999, Ramsay became one of the best-known and most influential chefs in the world.
Mario Francesco Batali is an American chef, writer, and former restaurateur. Batali co-owned restaurants in New York City; Las Vegas; Los Angeles; Newport Beach, California; Boston; Singapore; Westport, Connecticut; and New Haven, Connecticut, including Babbo in New York City, which received a Michelin star for several years. Batali has appeared on the Food Network, on shows such as Molto Mario and Iron Chef America, on which he was one of the featured "Iron Chefs". In 2017, the restaurant review site Eater revealed multiple accusations of sexual misconduct against Batali and, in March 2019, he sold all his restaurant holdings.
Jacques Pépin is a French chef, author, culinary educator, television personality, and artist. After having been the personal chef of French President Charles de Gaulle, he moved to the US in 1959 and after working in New York's top French restaurants, refused the same job with President John F. Kennedy in the White House and instead took a culinary development job with Howard Johnson's. During his career, he has served in numerous prestigious restaurants, first, in Paris, and then in America. He has appeared on American television and has written for The New York Times, Food & Wine and other publications. He has authored more than 30 cookbooks, some of which have become best sellers. Pépin was a longtime friend of the American chef Julia Child, and their 1999 PBS series Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home won a Daytime Emmy Award. He also holds a BA and a MA from Columbia University in French literature.
Gary Rhodes was an English restaurateur and television chef, known for his love of English cuisine and ingredients and for his distinctive spiked hair style. He fronted shows such as MasterChef, MasterChef USA, Hell's Kitchen, and his own series, Rhodes Around Britain. As well as owning several restaurants, Rhodes also had his own line of cookware and bread mixes. Rhodes went on to feature in the ITV1 programme Saturday Cooks, as well as the UKTV Food show Local Food Hero before his sudden death at age 59.
José Ramón Andrés Puerta is a Spanish-American chef and restaurateur. Born in Spain, he moved to the United States in the early 1990s and since then, he has opened restaurants in several American cities. He has won a number of awards, both for his cooking, and his humanitarian work. He is a professor as well as the founder of the Global Food Institute at George Washington University.
Joseph Bastianich is an American restaurateur, author and television personality. He, along with his mother and business partner Lidia Bastianich, co-owns thirty restaurants in four countries, including Osteria Mozza in Los Angeles, which the owners expanded in 2010. Earlier that same year, they teamed up with businessman Oscar Farinetti to bring Eataly, an upscale food and wine market, to Dallas, Boston, Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York City, London and Stockholm.
David Chang is an American restaurateur, author, podcaster, and television personality. He is the founder of the Momofuku restaurant group. In 2009, Momofuku Ko was awarded two Michelin stars, which the restaurant has retained each year since. In 2011, he co-founded the influential food magazine Lucky Peach, which lasted for 25 quarterly volumes into 2017. In 2018, Chang created, produced, and starred in a Netflix original series called Ugly Delicious, and through his Majordomo Media group, he has produced and/or starred in more television and podcasts. On November 29, 2020, he became the first celebrity to win the $1,000,000 top prize for his charity, Southern Smoke Foundation, and the fourteenth overall million dollar winner on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, with the help of Mina Kimes via the phone-a-friend lifeline on the million-dollar question and Alan Yang as his supporter.
L’Espalier was a French restaurant located in Boston, Massachusetts, in the Back Bay neighborhood, adjacent to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. The chef and owner of L'Espalier was Frank McClelland, who received a James Beard Foundation Award in 2007 for Best Northeast Chef.
Andy Husbands is a chef, restaurateur, author and television personality. Currently, he is the chef and owner of The Smoke Shop BBQ restaurants, Boston magazine's "Best Barbecue Restaurant of 2018" and The Improper Bostonian's "Best Barbecue" of 2017 and 2018. Smoke Shop BBQ has locations in various Boston metropolitan locations, including Cambridge's Kendall Square and Harvard Square, Seaport's Fort Point, Somerville's Assembly Row, TD Garden's Hub Hall, and most recently, East Boston's Clippership Wharf. He has nearly 30 years in the restaurant industry.
Matthew Kenney is an American celebrity chef, entrepreneur, author, and educator specializing in plant-based cuisine. He is the author of 12 cookbooks, founder of dozens of vegan restaurants, and founder of the companies Matthew Kenney Cuisine and Matthew Kenney Culinary, a plant-based diet education business.
Ken Oringer is a Boston-based chef who is a business partner of Jamie Bissonnette.
Milk Bar is a chain of dessert and bakery restaurants in the United States, founded by chef Christina Tosi. As of 2023, the chain has branches in New York City; Los Angeles; Washington, D.C.; Las Vegas; and Bellevue, Washington.
Michael Solomonov is an Israeli chef known for his restaurants in Center City, Philadelphia. His first restaurant Zahav, founded in 2008, has received national recognition including the James Beard Foundation "Outstanding Restaurant" in 2019. Solomonov was also awarded Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic in 2011, Cookbook of the Year in 2016, and Outstanding Chef in 2017 from the James Beard Foundation. In 2021, The New York Times named his restaurant Laser Wolf as one of "the 50 places in America we're most excited about right now."
Jody Adams is an American chef and restaurateur. Adams owns and operates TRADE and Porto in Massachusetts. She was owner and executive chef of Rialto in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for over 20 years. In 1997, she won the James Beard Award for Best Chef in America Northeast.
Elle Simone, also known as Elle Simone Scott, is an American chef, culinary producer, test cook, and food stylist. She is founder of the mentoring organization SheChef.
Julien Royer is a French chef and restaurant owner. He is the Chef-owner of Odette in Singapore and Louise in Hong Kong. in 2019, Odette was awarded the highest distinction of 3 Michelin stars by the Michelin guide. Royer was born in Cantal, Central France to fourth-generation farmers.
Moncef Mohamed Slaoui is a Moroccan-born Belgian-American researcher who served as the head of Operation Warp Speed (OPWASP) under President Donald Trump from 2020 to 2021.
Oleana “Ana” Sortun is a chef, restaurateur and author in the Boston area.
Frank McClelland is a chef and restaurateur in the Boston area who received a James Beard Foundation Award in 2007 for Best Northeast Chef.
Cassie Piuma is an American chef and restaurateur, at Sarma, a restaurant in Somerville, Massachusetts that she owns with Ana Sortun. Her husband, Matthew Piuma, whom she met in college, is also a co-owner.