KEITH SCHROEDER

Chef, author, and culinary creator

Naples, Florida · linkedin.com/in/keithmschroeder

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I cook what's in season, where I am, for whoever's at the table. Peaches in July on Long Island don't need much from me. Most of the job is paying attention to the guests and to where we are. The rest is born of a lifetime of travel and dedication to learning how people live in their element, from Yucatán to Thailand to the North Atlantic. I develop for the shelf, refrigerated or freezer case in the same way I approach a table.

What I'm hired to do

Menu and concept development

For restaurants, hotels, clubs, and new concepts. Menus guests love that a busy line can cook at cost.

Product development and R&D

Recipes taken from the test kitchen to a co-manufacturer and onto the retail shelf.

Private and estate dining

Households, private yachts, and events here and abroad, from dinner for eight to a weekend for twenty.

Culinary direction and openings

Kitchen builds and opening teams, plus the recipes and standards they cook from.

Writing, media, and teaching

Cookbooks, columns, recipe development, and on-camera work.

Traditional foodways

Menus rooted in a place and its traditions, from Yucatán to the North Fork. The subject of the next book.

Selected work

Private and internationalYachts, estates, abroad: Private yacht engagements in Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Iceland. Work with a restaurant group in Thailand. Private households and their events.
The HamptonsSummer seasons: Private summers on the East End for repeat clients: seated dinners, multi-day house stays across every meal, and buffets for twenty. Menus, provisioning, prep, and service plans, run with a small team.
New England Culinary InstituteVermont: Executive Chef, the youngest in the school's history. Cooks trained there went on to Eleven Madison Park and other top kitchens.
Table TalesNew York City: Principal chef at an elite private catering house at South Street Seaport, cooking for fashion houses, medical pioneers, and recording artists.
Barona Resort & CasinoSan Diego: Property Sous Chef on a $260M expansion, with 40+ chefs and 400+ cooks across the outlets. Barona Oaks earned DiRōNA and Wine Spectator recognition within an AAA Four Diamond property.
HotelsKor Hotel Group, HEI Hotels: Executive Chef, Food and Beverage Director, and task-force roles across full-service hotels.

Food products and ventures

YAXSnack line: Took a Chaya-based snack line from concept to the KeHE Golden Ticket, a national distribution award, in under six months. Albertsons LaunchPad Finalist.
Athletic clubMenu and frozen line: Developing healthy menu items and a line of frozen foods for an emerging athletic club.
Retail smoked sausageFlorida BBQ group: Leading the move of a high-end, multi-unit BBQ group's products into retail, starting with smoked sausage.
High RoadFounder: Founded this craft ice cream company as a chef and grew it to about $30M in revenue, with six straight years on the Inc. 5000.
GeorgiaRestaurants, markets, catering: Founded and ran restaurants, a neighborhood market, and a catering business, including Schroeder's Market and North Park Square in Marietta.

Training and range

Classical training

Apprenticed under Jean Banchet at Riviera. Savory and pastry at Nikolai's Roof.

Cuisines

French, Italian, Thai, Indian, Mexican and Yucatecan, West African, kosher, and Long Island coastal. Wellness and dietary cooking.

Cooked and lived in

Yucatán, San Diego, Los Angeles, Napa and Sonoma, New York City, Long Island and the North Fork, Upstate New York, Vermont, Georgia, and Florida.

Chefs I helped develop

Abram Bissell (Eleven Madison Park, The NoMad), Rick Mace (Café Boulud), John DaSilva (Chickadee), and Kevin Burleson (Nantucket).

Honors and writing

James Beard FoundationBook award, 2015: Focus on Health category, for Mad Delicious.
Henry R. Luce AwardTime Inc., 2015: Book of the Year, for Mad Delicious.
Cooking LightColumnist: Wrote the "Cooking Class" column.
SyndicationTime Inc.: Recipes and videos from Mad Delicious were syndicated across Time Inc.'s food sites and in Cooking Light.
In progress: A book on traditional foodways.

How I work

Engagements range from one menu or one dinner to a whole concept, product line, or kitchen opening. I work directly with owners, hosts, and their teams, and every client stays confidential. Sample menus follow.

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Culinary profile