Brendan Walsh (born 1959) is an American chef known for

southwestern cuisine The cuisine of the Southwestern United States is food styled after the rustic cooking of the Southwestern United States. It comprises a fusion of recipes for things that might have been eaten by Spanish colonial settlers, cowboys, Native Ame ...

. He was the original chef of Arizona 206 in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

(from 1985 to 1988) and won the "Who's Who of Cooking in America"

James Beard Foundation Award The James Beard Foundation Awards are annual awards presented by the James Beard Foundation to recognize chefs, restaurateurs, authors and journalists in the United States. They are scheduled around James Beard's May 5 birthday. The media award ...

. As of 2020 he is Dean of the School of Culinary Arts at the Culinary Institute of America.

Early life

Walsh grew up in

the Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

. He later moved to

Ridgefield, Connecticut Ridgefield is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. Situated in the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains, the 300-year-old community had a population of 25,033 at the 2020 census. The town center, which was formerly a borough ...

and attended Ridgefield High School.

Career

Walsh graduated from

the Culinary Institute of America The Culinary Institute of America (CIA) is a private culinary school with its primary campus in Hyde Park, New York, and branch campuses in St. Helena and Napa, California; San Antonio, Texas; and Singapore. The college, which was the firs ...

Hyde Park, New York Hyde Park is a town in Dutchess County, New York, United States, bordering the Hudson River north of Poughkeepsie. Within the town are the hamlets of Hyde Park, East Park, Staatsburg, and Haviland. Hyde Park is known as the hometown of Fran ...

in 1980. From there, he moved to Los Angeles and subsequently worked at

Stars A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by its gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night, but their immense distances from Earth ma ...

restaurant in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

. He later moved back to New York City as executive chef at Arizona 206. There he appeared on magazines such as '' Food & Wine'' and ''

USA Today ''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgi ...

''. He worked as consulting chef in 1989 to Wet Paint, and eventually as chef at the Coyote Grill in Island Park from 1990 to 1991. 1991 to 1993, he was the co-owner and chef of the North Street Grill in

Great Neck Great Neck is a region on Long Island, New York, that covers a peninsula on the North Shore and includes nine villages, among them Great Neck, Great Neck Estates, Great Neck Plaza, Kings Point, and Russell Gardens, and a number of unincor ...

. In 1996, he moved to Ridgefield, Connecticut, opening the Elms Restaurant and Tavern (now called Brendan's at the Elms). The Elms Restaurant was featured in the Thanksgiving special of

Martha Stewart Martha Helen Stewart (, ; born August 3, 1941) is an American retail businesswoman, writer, and television personality. As founder of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, she gained success through a variety of business ventures, encompassing pu ...

References

Living people 1959 births American chefs American male chefs People from the Bronx Culinary Institute of America Hyde Park alumni {{chef-bio-stub