Thomas Rhee

I'm a chef who started out by graduating from Peter Kump's NY Culinary School. The school has changed it's name since I've graduated and is now called The Institute Of Culinary Education. Some of the more notable former instructors were James Beard, Julia Child, David Bouley, Jacques Pépin, Simone Beck, Marcella Hazen, Sara Moulton and Diana Kennedy.

I'm also a graduate of Parsons School of Design with a double major in Fashion Design and Merchandising. In fact, when I was interviewed for admissions, Timothy Gunn was the admissions director who interviewed and ultimately accepted my application to the school. If the name sounds familiar, it is the Tim Gunn from the show "Project Runway". Prior to Parsons, I also majored in Business Administration at Boston University. All of the education has helped in one way or another with my career as a chef.

Early on in my career, I was fortunate enough to have worked for some great chefs in some of the best NYC fine dining kitchens. These include David Waltuck at Chanterelle, Laurent Tourondel at Cello and currently with the BLT Restaurant Group and with Rocco DiSpirito at Union Pacific.

Later on I moved on to high volume fine dining seafood restaurants as well as high end catering and banquets. During my catering years, some notables I have personally cooked for as an Executive Chef have been Bill Clinton, Hilary Clinton, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Senator Joe Lieberman, General Norman Schwarzkopf, real estate mogul and philanthropist Charles Kushner along with many entertainment celebrities.

Later I would delve more into Japanese cuisine which ultimately led me to relocate to Los Angeles, CA to take on the Corporate Executive Chef and Corporate Executive R&D Chef positions simultaneously for Todai's headquarters based in City Of Industry, CA outside of Los Angeles. Upon leaving Todai, IchiUmi in New York City, recruited me as their Corporate Executive Chef for their East Coast expansion efforts.

Currently I am a consulting chef specializing in restaurant openings. I am also currently working on opening my very own restaurant as well as writing a book.

My other interests aside from food and cooking lies in audio gear, music, photography, travel, art, electronics and gadgets in general.