James Kovacs

Working as a bartender piqued my interest in the culinary world and led me to attending the CCA. The CCAs location is in San Francisco and this enabled me to work under top chefs while still going to school. I started at Real Restaurant by opening Bistro Roti, and also worked at Fog City, Bix and Mustards, then opened Cypress Club, Rubicon, Abiquiu as a sous chef, moved to Lulu as the purchasing sous, then off to NYC for a year. Opened the first Whole Foods in San Francisco, then worked as chef on the Peninsula.

A recurring aspect of my career has been opening and remodeling restaurants. This helped me become well versed in cooking equipment, kitchen design and the opening process. As the chef at Piacere, I helped them through a major remodel doubling the size. I then helped plan, build and open two restaurants, Rumi and Bair Island Tap & Eatery in San Carlos. Lastly my working at Sir & Star in western Marin was revelatory and opened the world of molecular gastronomy and working a hyper-local men.

Culinary school was very helpful, but the experience working with talented chefs was invaluable. There’s always more to learn and I enjoy that aspect of the culinary world. When I find something that interests me, I tend to take a deep dive into the subject. That’s how I feel about how we have been seasoning our food since long before the written word. Our innate tendencies are to look for ways to make our daily meals taste good and archaeologists have discovered we’ve been doing this for hundreds of millennia.