co-owner & executive chef
Susan Coulter trained at the famed Dumas-Père cooking school before taking her first job at a restaurant in the Sears Tower. She went on to become assistant pastry chef for critically-acclaimed chef, Charlie Trotter. “Trotter wanted me to come to work for him and asked if I knew pastry. I told him I only knew what I had learned in cooking school, but he hired me anyway.” 
After that extensive training, Susan worked as sous-chef at the Society Café and as lead cook at the Pierpont Restaurant in Baltimore.
Returning to Chicago, Susan was appointed Kitchen Manager and Head Chef of Minnie’s New World Market & Kitchen, then went to learn new skills as chef at Mirani’s and at the Corner Bakery. Hired as a private chef for a prominent family, Susan traveled extensively and discovered the Central Coast of California. When she was ready to move on after six years, she moved to Ojai with her partner.
Susan served as Head Chef for Pangea Restaurant, then for Movino’s Wine Bar where she developed a fine food and wine-pairing menu. Concurrently, she revived the catering service she had created in Chicago, Here Eat This, which was an immediate success.
In an interview with Edible Ojai’s Tracey Ryder, Susan was asked if she thought great chefs were born with their talent or if it was a matter of good training. “The creativity must be in you first, then you need the skills. You can learn the skills,” she answered, then added, “But if you’re lucky enough to work for great chefs, they inspire you further. When skill, creativity and inspiration mix, like good flavors and seasonings, you get a better, more sophisticated chef.”
Susan’s career culminated with the mother of all challenges for a chef—opening her own restaurant Feast Bistro, with partner Elio Zarmati and bringing gourmet food and fine entertainment to downtown Ojai.
|
