Posts classified under: Food

Chef Darian Bryan is a Jamaican celebrity chef, and he is bringing the heat to Buffalo, NY. He has been featured in a number of press outlets including Food Network, Fox, CBS News, ESPN, The Jamaican Observer, The Gleaner, and TVJ. He is also a competitor on season 5 of Next Level Chef with Gordon Ramsay.

Chef Darian arrived in the United States in 2012, and has quickly risen to the spotlight. People know him for his pop-up fine dining events, and his popular “Jerk Hut” in Buffalo, NY. He is also a private chef to Buffalo’s favorite NFL players.

Chef Darian specializes in everything extra from his signature fedora hats and chef jacket styles, to his jewelry, to his colossal surf and turf. Recently he opened a brand new dining concept, a boutique for chef services. The boutique allows Chef Darian to focus on his mission of redefining the chef by bringing them from the back of the house to the front. Each dining party is centered around his cooking.

Chef Darian believes that all chefs are rock stars and should be celebrated as such. Their food makes people happy and they should feel and see that love too. Through all his success, he represents Jamaica to the fullest, and loves to merge his Caribbean cuisine with all his fine dining dishes.

Small town guy with an appetite for variety.

After spending nearly a decade in Advertising and Marketing, Jason decided to take his skills and
merge them with his love of cooking. Thus Jorts Kitchen was born and amassed 1 million
followers across all platforms in under a year.

Growing up, Jason’s entire family bonded over food. It was at the center of all their gatherings. It took
him 29 years to figure out that not only does he love eating food, but further loves creating it as well.
Getting bored of all the same old recipes and barbecue that people make, Jorts Kitchen sets out to prove that there are still recipes that haven’t been invented yet. It’s Jason’s mission to inspire people that they can get creative with food and come up with something that’s never been tasted before.

Chef Kelly Scott is a professional chef, culinary instructor, and nutrition focused creator behind Kelly’s Clean Kitchen. She was professionally trained at the country’s best culinary school, The Culinary Institute of America and has worked in multiple restaurants before starting her company in 2020. It is Kelly’s mission to educate others on how to cook and also help them find a passion through food!

The journey of getting to cooking was a roller coaster for Kelly. In her sophomore year as a D1 college volleyball player, she suffered a traumatic brain injury that disqualified her from college athletics. Her passion was in volleyball, so when that was ripped away she fell into a depression and a lesser known eating disorder, orthorexia.

Because she didn’t trust anyone else to cook her food, she began cooking for herself. Through the process of cooking, she gained a new passion and started loving food again. Cooking was a huge part of pulling her out of her eating disorder and getting her on the road to recovery. With this new passion, she decided to attend The Culinary Institute of America after her undergrad.

At the CIA she was one of 4 women in her graduating class, was nominated class leader throughout her two years there, and graduated with honors and the top of her class in 2019. She was also able to work for multiple restaurants during her time at The CIA and shortly after that helped her grow her skills and expertise in the kitchen.

At the start of the pandemic in 2020, she decided to leave the restaurant industry to create her own business, Kelly’s Clean Kitchen, with the hope of working more closely with people to inspire them to cook better through lessons, or eat healthier through her meal services.

Since the start of her business she has become a sought after private chef in Orange County, California, has created her own culinary curriculum for students she works one on one with, and creates educational cooking videos on her channels to help inspire others to cook in the kitchen!

Her first cookbook, The Basics of Cooking, was published in November of 2022 and teaches the essential fundamentals of cooking that everyone should know through in-depth methodology, recipes, and video tutorials about everything you learn in the book!

Her mission is to help others find a passion and love in cooking and eating well through her educational videos and books and partnerships.

Brandon Dearden is a passionate and driven Executive chef with years of experience in fine dining within the restaurant and hospitality/resorts industry. Brandon has successfully made a name for himself throughout an extensive 20+year career in the culinary arts, with leadership roles in a number of award-winning restaurants and luxury hotels.

From a young age, Brandon spent hours watching culinary TV shows with his brother Jonathan. After attending culinary school in Florida, Brandon earned 2 associates degrees: one in culinary and another in international baking and pastry. From there, Brandon trained in Las Vegas, Chicago, Los Angeles and SF to pursue his career.

Along with his experience as an executive chef, Brandon is highly focused on the creative research and development side of business. Throughout his career that has spanned a number of organizations including Saison Hospitality Group, Wolfgang Puck’s At Hotel Bel-Air,  Aureole Las Vegas, Alinea in Chicago, Daniel Bouluds’ Dinex Group &  The Breakers Resort, Brandon has demonstrated his business acumen quite successfully.

Today, Brandon remains just as committed than ever working on a Multiple Concept Restaurant Group in Montana.