Restaurants and Institutions

Stu Stein

Stu Stein Bio - earth2table Blog
July 12, 2006

Stu Stein, chef, cookbook author and passionate advocate of local, organic and sustainable ingredients and regional, market-driven cooking, will open Terroir Restaurant & Wine Bar in the spring of 2007. Located in Portland, Ore., Terroir will embody Stein’s culinary passions and philosophy. A French term, “terroir” refers to a sense of place, denoting the unique traits and characteristics geography bestows on local food products.

A graduate of the culinary arts program at Chicago’s Kendall College and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Stein was named sous-chef of La Fontaine restaurant in Chicago and later traveled to Lyon, France to study under Paul Bocuse and Bordeaux to work with Francis Garcia. Subsequent kitchen turns took him to restaurants in Atlanta, Kansas City and Washington, D.C.

A trip to the Pacific Northwest piqued his interest in the region and Stein subsequently moved across the country. He taught briefly at the California Culinary Academy before becoming executive chef and co-owner of the Peerless Restaurant and Hotel in Ashland, Ore. There, he “show[ed] what Northwest produce is capable of,” according to Gourmet, and earned praise for “expanding the borders of American regional cuisine” from the Oregonian’s David Sarasohn. Stein and his wife, Chef Mary Hinds, captured their devotion to local, seasonal ingredients produced in organic and sustainable fashion in The Sustainable Kitchen: Passionate Cooking Inspired by Farms, Forests and Oceans published in 2004 by New Society Publishers.

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Posted by Stu Stein on July 12, 2006 | Comments (0)