CHEF DAVID BURKE

THE CULINARY PRANKSTER

Fueled by passion, grit and a knack for artful innovation, David Burke is one of the best known and most respected chefs in modern American cuisine.

Acknowledged as a leading pioneer in American cooking, Burke, a New Jersey native, is also recognized internationally for his revolutionary techniques, exceptional skills, successful restaurant empire and his many TV appearances. In the parlance of today’s celebrity driven culture, he is a rock star of the culinary world.

At just 26, Burke’s kitchen mastery won him the executive chef position of New York City’s legendary River Café. While there, he became the first American ever to win the prestigious Meilleurs Ouvriers de France Diplome d’Honneur, cementing his reputation as a leading international chef. He subsequently won Japan’s Nippon Award for Excellence, the Robert Mondavi Award of Excellence and two nominations for James Beard Best Chef. Burke was also awarded a coveted three-star New York Times review for the River Café and later became a familiar guest on TV’s Top Chef.

Chef Burke’s honors and awards are too numerous to catalogue, but include such notable recognition as:

  • Meilleurs Ouvriers de France Diplome d’Honneur. The only American to win this honor
  • Japan’s Nippon Award of Excellence
  • Robert Mondavi Award of Excellence
  • Culinary Art Institute’s August Escoffier Award
  • James Beard Foundation Who’s Who in Culinary Arts
  • Nation’s Restaurant News awarded him with the Menu Masters Award
  • New Jersey Red Cross Clara Barton Humanitarian of the Year
  • James Beard Foundation Best Chef New York
  • Time Out New York Best Culinary Prankster

Looking for fresh opportunities, Burke eventually set his sights on a new goal – restaurant ownership. He opened many with the founder of the iconic Smith & Wollensky steakhouse brand, and later formed a hospitality company with partners, which owned and operated numerous award-winning restaurants around the country.  It was during this period he gained U.S. patents for several innovations, including his famous Himalayan salt aging process for beef. Always progressing, Burke created his own company, David Burke Group, with several sub companies including DB Global and David Burke Hospitality Management, which owns and manages, licenses and consults with restaurants, hotels, clubs and schools.

Highly recognized for his industry insight, culinary accomplishments and candid delivery Burke is often a leading contributor to major news sources such as Fox TV, ABC TV, Forbes, NYTimes, Bloomburg and more. Roles as event honoree, keynote speaker, tasting judge and speaking engagements, the most recent being TEDx Asbury Park, are too numerous to list.

A force to be reckoned with, Burke continued to push forward through the pandemic catastrophe and even experienced an uptick in sales of his high end cookware line, Freiling, available on Chef’s Website; and his namesake consumer line sold at TJMAXX, Marshalls and Home Goods. Sheer boredom during the lockdown spurred his hugely popular and hilarious cooking demos “LeftobyDB”, with Lefto the puppet bearing an uncanny resemblance to Burke with unruly gray hair, large framed glasses and chef’s coat. He also launched a virtual online cooking demo program, CookinDB IGTV, and employee incentive programs tailor-made for Fortune 500  companies like Verizon. From the ashes of the nation’s devastated restaurant industry rose five Burke restaurants including his masterpiece Orchard Park by David Burke, his first-ever complete buildout project. And #Feedthe Heroes, a program that cooked and delivered 100,000 meals to frontline workers and charities.

Burke is the author of two cookbooks, Cooking With David Burke, and David Burke’s New American Classics.

Chef David Burke

TELEVISION CELEBRITY

Over the years, Chef Burke has become one of the most recognized chefs on television, including appearances on two seasons of Bravo’s Top Chef Masters, a guest spot on the Every Day with Rachael Ray show, NBC’s TODAY Show, Bloomberg’s small-business television series The Mentor, and more. He is currently developing concepts to bring his unique take on the culinary world to your screen.

PARTNERSHIPS

Chef Burke partners with successful organizations as a culinary consultant, developing products and menus. Looking to partner with Chef David Burke? Click here to contact #TeamChewDoin.

aramark logo

Culinary Consultant & Menu Design

bowlmor lanes logo

Culinary Director & Menu Development

crumbs bake shop logo

Development of premium sandwich and salad line

lufthansa logo

Culinary Consultant & Menu Design

Holland America Line logo

Culinary Ingenuities Consultant
Signature recipes highlighted on all 14 ships

Honest Plate and Chef Burke logo

Culinary Consultant

pepsi logo

Development of culinary innovations for #PEPCITY, PepsiCo’s pre-game Superbowl celebration

Samuel Adams logo

Celebrity Head Chef, Annual Spit BBQ
Recipe development

singapore airlines logo

Culinary Consultant & Menu Design

USTA logo

U.S. Open Celebrity Chef and consultant for Champions Bar & Grille in Arthur Ashe Stadium

PHILANTHROPY

Chef Burke actively supports numerous charity and community groups. Interested in having Chef Burke support your organization? Click here to contact Chef Burke and #TeamChewdoin.

Organizations that Chef Burke has supported include:

David Burke Feed The Heroes logo
american red cross logo
meals on wheels logo
table to table logo
march of dimes logo
city meals on wheels logo
American Cancer Society logo
City Harvest logo
The Foodbank logo
Share Our Strength logo
Culinary Kickoff logo
Help USA logo

PRODUCTS AND PATENTS

CULINARY PIONEER

Chef Burke is actively involved in culinology, an approach to food blending culinary arts and food technology. As a culinary pioneer, Burke’s innovations and revolutionizing techniques appear on menus all over the world. Chef Burke owns the patent for the unique process by which he uses pink Himalayan salt to dry-age his steaks for up to 100 days.

PRODUCTS

COOKWARE

Chef David Burke has a complete line of licensed cookware from pots and pans to knives to bakeware and everything in-between.

FOOD ITEMS

Chef David Burke has put his spin on steak sauce, chips, popcorn, beef jerky, coffee and more.

Gourmet Pops

GOURMET POPS™
Ready-To-Serve Cheesecake Lollipops

Pastrami Salmon

PASTRAMI SALMON™
Available Through Acme Smoked Fish

Flavor Spray

FLAVOR SPRAY™

COOKBOOK AUTHOR

David Burke has published two cookbooks, Cooking With David Burke (1999) and David Burke’s New American Classics (2006) co-written by Judith Choate.

Cooking With David Burke book cover

COOKING WITH DAVID BURKE
By David Burke, Carmel Berman Reingold

New American Classics book cover

DAVID BURKE’S NEW AMERICAN CLASSICS
By David Burke, Judith Choate

PATENTS

DB Meat Aging Process Patent

MEAT AGING PROCESS
US Patent #7,998,517 B2

DB Serving Tray Patent

SERVING TRAY
US Patent #362,787

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