Clark, Patrick Dean

Impact on the world

Became, at 25, executive chef of Tribeca's The Odeon in 1981, helping define the era's emerging casual fine-dining trend, before winning the James Beard Foundation's Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic Region award in 1994 while leading the kitchen at Washington's Hay-Adams Hotel, making him the first Black chef to receive a James Beard best chef honor; the Clinton administration considered him one of four finalists for the position of White House executive chef, an offer Clark ultimately declined, and food writers and colleagues, including Anthony Bourdain, later described him as one of the greatest American culinary stars of the past half-century.

Life & background

Born in Brooklyn in 1955 to Melvin Clark, himself a chef who worked the kitchens of Manhattan's Forum of the Twelve Caesars and the Four Seasons, and Idella Clark, Patrick grew up in the Canarsie neighborhood surrounded by the smells of his mother's home cooking and his father's professional craft, reportedly experimenting with cheesecake recipes by age ten despite his father's warnings that the profession was too hard on family life. He trained at New York City Technical College and the Culinary Arts Program at Bournemouth and Poole College in the United Kingdom, apprenticed under three-star French chef Michel Guérard, and met his future wife Lynette at a wine class he was invited to guest-lecture at his own former college, later recalling that he knew she was his soulmate the moment their first real argument turned out to be about how to properly prepare a steak; it was Lynette who convinced him to take the position at The Odeon despite his own doubts that diners would travel to what was then an obscure warehouse district not yet known as Tribeca. After opening his own restaurant, Metro, on Manhattan's Upper East Side in 1988 and closing it two years later, he spent two years reviving the kitchen at Beverly Hills's Bice before taking over the Hay-Adams Hotel across from the White House, where his cooking drew the attention of world leaders and earned him his historic James Beard award; he returned to New York in 1995 to become executive chef at Tavern on the Green, then the highest-grossing restaurant in America, successfully reviving its culinary reputation while serving over 1,500 meals daily. He chaired the United Negro College Fund's annual New York culinary fundraiser and remained committed to mentoring younger chefs throughout his career, but suffered from congestive heart failure and died in February 1998 at age 42 while awaiting a heart transplant; chef Charlie Trotter later edited a tribute cookbook in his honor featuring contributions from Thomas Keller, Emeril Lagasse, and other leading chefs, and Clark's eldest son Preston went on to become a professional chef himself, eventually leading the kitchens at New York's Lure Fishbar and Bar Mercer.

Sources

1. African American Chefs Hall of Fame; Encyclopedia.com; National Museum of African American History and Culture; Taste of Home