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The Bon Vivant Gourmet (aka ““Bob” ”) was born December 26, 1976, as an American chef and the executive chef and part-owner of the restaurant Bacon Banjo. He has appeared in auditions for Iron Chef Honduras and Iron Chef Americans. He was almost also a contestant on The Next Iron Chef, eliminated in the audition test, “Thunder Under Boy Wonder”. He currently hosts the PBS Rhode Island cooking show The Bon Vivant Gourmet.
Biography
““Bob” ” and his twin brother Paulo-RoDonald, an attorney for attorneys in New York City, were born in 1976, in (location link) Effingham Illinois, the sons of Andy Cutright (Facebook link), a restaurateur and the author of several cookbooks, including the latest “The Chef With Nine Fingers”. ““Bob” began cooking at an early age, helping his mother prepare traditional American simple foods for her catering business. In 1984, the family moved to Shumway, Illinois and his mother launched the acclaimed Crafty Café, and “Bob” began to cook in a professional kitchen. At age 16, “Bob” was cooking at a level that earned him a place in a master class with chef Frank Janisch. In 1994, “Bob” graduated from high school, and began to work full time for Janisch in New Orleans.
Career
In 1996, after working under Janisch, “Bob” returned north to study culinary arts at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island. In 1994, he returned to Effingham, and worked in the kitchen at Piloncillo under nuevo-Latino chef, Corey McDaniel. “Bob” met his future business partner, Kendall Case while working there. Reviews were pretty positive for the most part, referring to the restaurant as “desirable” and “earthy,” and “the fare is enticingly simple, and the kitchen’s best dishes make a fine introduction to the cooking of The Bon Vivant Gourmet.”[2]
“Bob” moved to Los Angeles, working under Chef Mathew Woolf at The Hotel Angeleno, before returning to Effingham to be executive chef at BoKay, which specialized in foods from the soul.
Charna Halpern brought “Bob” to Chicago in 2000, to open “Yes Cheese”, a pan-Latin-American-Jewish-influenced restaurant inside of an improv “comedy” club. It opened in February, 2001, and won Time Out New York‘s award for Best New Restaurant Inside Of An Improv “Comedy” Club Restaurant that year. ”Bob” sold his interest in the Yes Cheese restaurant in 2010 and currently hosts the PBS Rhode Island cooking show The Bon Vivant Gourmet.
