Meet Chef Waldy Malouf

Chef/Co-Owner, BEACON Restaurant • Bar • Bakery (NY)
-and- Author, THE HUDSON RIVER VALLEY COOKBOOK: A Leading American Chef Savors the Region's Bounty Author, HIGH HEAT

Open fire and wood fire cooking are the hallmarks of the earthy, flavorful, and inventive cuisine Waldy Malouf presents at his two exciting restaurants, midtown landmark BEACON Restaurant • Bar • Bakery and BEACON Restaurant and Bar in Stamford, CT. And in his highly favorable New York Times review, restaurant critic William Grimes acknowledged, "[Beacon]...delivers uncomplicated, big-flavored food, emphasizing fresh, seasonal ingredients. That's all, and that's enough...Beacon gets it right."

Waldy Malouf graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in 1975 having won First Prize in that year's Carras Culinary Competition. His extensive professional experience includes affiliations with The Four Seasons, La Côte Basque, the St. Regis Hotel, La Cremaillere (Banksville, NY), the Hudson River Club, and The Rainbow Room.

In fact, it was just four short months after being named Chef/Director of Manhattan's beloved Rainbow Room that critic Ruth Reichl of The New York Times awarded the restaurant a remarkable three star review–its first–and one of only three three-star reviews bestowed in 1997.

Beginning at La Cremaillere, Waldy developed a signature cuisine that presented the culinary riches of New York State's Hudson River Valley, a subject he explored to great acclaim in his first book, THE HUDSON RIVER VALLEY COOKBOOK: A Leading American Chef Savors the Region's Bounty (Addison-Wesley, 1995). The book-nominated for a Julia Child Cookbook Award from the IACP–won high praise from The New York Times, which reviewed it on two separate occasions, naming it one of the year's "Ten Best" in "The Sunday Book Review." Bon Appetit, Gourmet, and The Daily News also lauded the work, which was released in paperback the summer of 1999 by Harvard Common Press and optioned by Book-of-the-Month-Club. Waldy is currently working on his second book, HIGH HEAT, scheduled for publication Spring 2003.

Waldy Malouf has been the recipient of many prizes and accolades for his outstanding work. A mere two months after the opening of Beacon, he was featured prominently in The New York Times as "The Chef" in the Wednesday "Dining In/Dining Out" section's eight-part chef/recipe series. His recipes are featured in the recent St. Martin's Press release, The Chefs of the Times.

Due to his expertise at RAINBOW!, the restaurant received a coveted Mobil Travel Guide Four-Star Award and was inducted into the Nation's Restaurant News "Fine Dining Hall of Fame." Waldy has been the subject of stories in Time magazine; House Beautiful; Metropolitan Home; New York magazine; Ladies' Home Journal; Food & Wine; Paper; Time Out New York; CNN; The Food Network; "CBS Early Show;" Brazilian and Japanese Television; New York 1; and numerous international magazines and guide books.

In October 1996, Waldy was one of five distinguished alumni chosen by the Culinary Institute of America to receive honors at their Golden Anniversary Gala. He sits on the Board of Directors of the Alumni Association. He won First Prize in the Third Annual Cointreau Recipe Contest in 1992, and has been named a "Great Chef of New York" numerous times by the James Beard Foundation. He is a frequent participant in The New School's "Behind the Scenes at the Great Restaurants of New York" series, and teaches regularly at Macy's "DeGustibus." Additionally, he judges many notable culinary competitions.

Waldy has travelled to the farms, wine-growing regions, cooking schools, and prestigious restaurants of London, Madrid, San Sebastian, Puglia, and the Sonoma Valley on behalf of the NY State Department of Economic Development, the NY Wine & Grape Foundation, and as a guest chef of the host countries. Another exciting project has taken him across the US forty times and back as a member of a group of regional chef-consultants to Northwest/KLM Airlines. Their objective is to create in-flight menus that incorporate regional cuisine from each of the airline's major US hubs.

In memory of his associates at Windows on the World, Waldy serves on the founding committee for the Windows of Hope Fund, which aids families of food service workers lost in the World Trade Center attack. To serve this organization, he helped develop and coordinate the October 11, 2001 dining out event, which encouraged restaurants throughout the world to donate 10% of the evening's proceeds to the Fund. The evening raised nearly $7 million.

Waldy has been a participating chef for Share Our Strength/Taste of the Nation's annual fundraising gala for years and served on the Board of Directors for the American Institute of Wine and Food (NY Chapter). He co-chaired their annual Marketplace Tasting several years in a row. Additionally, Waldy has a commitment to hunger-relief causes and culinary education, volunteering his services at numerous food world events including those sponsored by God's Love We Deliver; the Culinary Institute of America; CityMeals-on-Wheels; The James Beard Foundation; and Green Chimneys. He has spoken on the topic of the future of sustainable cuisine at The Joe Baum Forum on the Future at The Culinary Institute of America. Additionally, he is President of the Board of Directors of The Ballet School of Stamford.

With his wife, Meg, and their two children, Max and Merrill, Waldy Malouf lives in Connecticut.