Chef Robert Danhi, CCE CHE CEC CCP

Robert Danhi’s professional culinary career ignited nearly twenty years ago when he met his wife, Estrellita Leong, while taking cooking classes at El Camino Community College in Los Angeles. After taking a trip together to her homeland in Malaysia, Robert’s passion for all things Southeast Asian exploded. The result: a lifelong commitment to the demystification of Southeast Asian cuisine for home cooks, aspiring chefs and his industry peers.

Inspired to create a strong gastronomic foundation, Robert entered the prestigious Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York in the winter of 1989. Upon earning his degree in Culinary Arts, Robert honed his skills in varying restaurant positions from Los Angeles to Hawaii. Through these experiences, he soon realized that he enjoyed teaching his kitchen staff as much as collaborating with them and made a smooth transition into teaching cooking.

In 1993, Robert started offering cooking classes at locations throughout Southern California including Let’s Get Cooking in Westlake Village; Bristol Farms Cooking School and many other schools in the region. By 1995, Robert was the manager of the Bristol Farms Cooking School and then quickly moved into the position as Executive Chef Instructor and Director of Education at the Southern California School of Culinary Arts. In 1999, Robert returned to his roots as a faculty member at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park and taught coursework on everything from Cooking Principals and the Cuisines of Asia to the Physiology of Taste. He was recruited to join Two Chefs on a Roll as the Executive Chef, a custom food manufacture that served the retail and foodservice industry; here Robert began developing his current expertise in Research & Development and how to maintain the culinary Integrity through the culinary evolution of food products during complex the product development process.

Bringing all of his passions and expertise together, Robert founded Chef Danhi & Co in 2005, a consulting firm based in Los Angeles that works with food manufacturers, restaurants, educational organizations, and professional associations. This full service agency’s expertise resides in menu and product R&D, sales and marketing support, and educational and training programs. For more information go to www.chefdanhi.com.

Three years later he founded Mortar & Press, a multimedia group that conceptualizes and produces culinary infused content including Robert’s James Beard Nominated cookbook, Southeast Asian Flavors—Adventures in Cooking the Foods of Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, & Singapore. The book was also the winner of the Best Asian Cookbook of the USA in 2009 by Gourmand and a 2nd Best Asian Cookbook in the World. This labor of love offers readers an intimate look into Southeast Asian cuisine through the lens of Robert’s countless travels and adventures abroad. Robert researched for 20 years, developed all of the recipes, cooked, styled and photographed all of the pictures, designed and published the book himself.

When Robert is not busy in the kitchen experimenting with new recipes, consulting or teaching, he can be found traveling throughout Southeast Asia, riding his bike along the Pacific Coast, surfing, listening to music from his extensive reggae collection or spending time with his wife, Esther. He also enjoys leading culinary immersion tours in Los Angeles and in Southeast Asia for anyone that seeks a better understanding of Southeast Asian cuisine.

        

For more information, please visit southeastasianflavors.com and http://www.chefdanhi.com.