James Clary

In 1989, two brothers, Tom and James Clary opened Clary's American Grill in the growing town of Springfield. MO. Clary’s quickly became a Springfield landmark. After more than 25 years in the restaurant business, James sold Clary’s in 2007 to pursue other interests. James has also helped others in realizing their dream of owning their own restaurant. In addition to his consulting work, James has taught hundreds of cooking classes covering a plethora of culinary styles. Here is a short list of James’ accomplishments and noteworthy projects:
• Clary partnered with a well known European pastry company to create the world’s first instant soufflé; a product that is a dry, shelf stable powder that is mixed with water only to create a perfect soufflé from start to finish in under 15 minutes! James’ partner is Scott Opfer and the two operate under the banner of Gourmet Soufflé (gourmetsouffle.com).
• His restaurant is noted by Wikipedia to be the first to serve gooey butter cake as a dessert. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gooey_butter_cake
• The late, much lauded entertainer, Andy Williams, hired James to create a signature restaurant on land the singer owned in Branson. The result of the collaboration was Andy William’s Moon River Grill, an eatery that merged Andy’s taste for his Mother’s Midwestern cooking with James’ sophisticated, but sensible cuisine.
• Known for his charity work, his restaurant, Clary’s, was named the Small Business of the Year by the National Philanthropic Association.
• James was tagged as the Celebrity Chef on the Eurodam, Holland America’s most luxurious cruise liner. His two classes on the Mediterranean were sold out.
• In 2010, James was seriously overweight and was suffering from a variety of health ailments. Drawing on his culinary expertise and spending hundreds of hours in research, he developed a comprehensive “lifestyle program”, lost 65 lbs. and is now free from illness and pain. The City of Springfield recently hired him to teach the 450 Firefighters in the city, Healthy Firehouse Cooking. He continues to teach Healthy Cooking.
• Chef Clary has made over one hundred television appearances in the local market and will be appearing a major network cooking show in 2014.
• James is a diligent researcher and high energy public speaker with an analytical mind and a caring, empathetic outlook on life. Those qualities coupled with his talent in the kitchen have made Chef Clary popular