Dan Barber, recently emerged from a gastronomic scandal, with his “Blue Hill Restaurant,” One MICHELIN-Starred, and “Blue Hill at Stone Barns Restaurant,” awarded by the MICHELIN Guide with Two Stars and a Green one, is a champion of sustainability in the kitchen. Over the years, he has published numerous articles in various journalistic outlets, a manifesto, and has initiated collaborations with Harvard and Cornell. The chef has won various awards, such as the James Beard Foundation's Top Chef in America.
Dan Barber, born on October 2, 1969, in the Upper East Side of New York, is a blend of urbanite and lover of rural life. As a boy, he spent unforgettable summers on his family's farm in Massachusetts, the Blue Hill Farm, a name he would later choose as the emblem of his culinary empire. In 1992, he graduated from Tufts University with degrees in Political Science and English, fields far from the culinary world. However, his passion for culinary art and nature led him to California to work with the legendary Alice Waters at "Chez Panisse."
Upon returning to New York, he enrolled at the French Culinary Institute, earning his diploma in 1994, followed by a Parisian experience under the guidance of chef Michel Rostang. In 1996, he launched his first venture: a catering service under his own name. Four years later, with his brother David and David's wife, Laureen, he opened "Blue Hill Restaurant," which earned a MICHELIN Star in 2008, located in Greenwich Village, New York. The restaurant's philosophy is clear: gourmet dishes made with local and seasonal ingredients. The triumph was immediate, to the extent that David Rockefeller asked him to take charge of his 1500-hectare farmland in Westchester, investing 30 million dollars to provide Dan with the Stone Barns Center, an experimental and educational center focused on agriculture and food, to which he attached the "Blue Hill at Stone Barns Restaurant."
The accolades didn't wait. In 2002, Food and Wine Magazine named Dan among the Best New Chefs. Between 2006 and 2009, he won the awards for Best Chef in New York City, Outstanding Chef, and Top Chef in America from the James Beard Foundation. He was also included in Time Magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in the world. In the same year, a providential meeting occurred: Dan met Michael Mazourek, a professor at Cornell University, with whom he started culinary research projects and the development of non-GMO crossbreeds. In 2017, the two launched Row 7 Seed Co., focused on creating new plant varieties and democratizing the knowledge accumulated over years of collaboration. However, Cornell isn't the only university Dan collaborates with, as he's a member of the advisory board of the Center for Health and The Global Environment at Harvard Medical School.
Meanwhile, the restaurants continued to succeed and earned the title of "Outstanding Restaurant" from the James Beard Foundation in 2013 for the Greenwich location, and in 2015 for Stone Barns. During the same period, Dan and his wife Aria Beth Sloss became parents to two daughters. In 2014, he published the manifesto "The Third Plate: Field notes on the future of food," where he advocates for a dietary transition towards an environmentally conscious, waste-reducing, quality-focused, and nutritious approach.
During the Obama presidency, Dan became a member of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness, Sports, and Nutrition. Barber is also a published columnist in outlets like the New York Times, Gourmet, The Nation, and other journalistic platforms, where he writes about farm-to-table, zero-kilometer concepts, disintermediation, and the revival of unused varieties. He discusses these same themes on social media, on Netflix, in the episode dedicated to him in the first season of Chef’s Table, and in numerous TED Talks.
In 2019, the "Blue Hill at Stone Barns" restaurant entered the World’s 50 Best list, ranking 28th, and gained Two MICHELIN Stars, a recognition that brought joy to the entire restaurant staff. A few years later, the MICHELIN Green Star followed, but it was accompanied by a significant scandal that highlighted the working conditions of his employees and the potentially misleading storytelling regarding the restaurant's actual sustainability.
