ABOUT
Andrea Rappaport, Chef-Owner
My love of food and cooking was ignited at an early age and propelled by two major forces. The first was my maternal grandmother, who would lovingly spend time teaching me how to prepare her coveted recipes, and the other was my food obsessed parents who would regularly bring me and my brother to hot Los Angeles restaurants with them.
With a deeply instilled passion for food and cooking, it was no surprise that when I started my first job at the age of sixteen it was at a high end specialty food shop. A couple of years later, while attending college at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I pursued a degree in sociology, but I ultimately realized that I was much more interested in food and cooking. To that end I got a job as a line cook at one of the top restaurants in Madison and by my senior year, as I took a full class load and worked two different restaurant jobs, there was no doubt in my mind that my calling was to be a chef. After graduating with a bachelors degree, I moved to New York to attend the Culinary Institute of America and from there I landed a job at the original Spago restaurant in Hollywood and then at Spago, Las Vegas.
A few years into my Vegas stint, however, I’d had my fill of that town and decided to move to San Francisco where I had accepted the position of executive chef at a new Cal-Italian restaurant called Zinzino. In my six years as the chef there, I received sparkling reviews from customers and food critics alike. I was named one of the top ten Rising Star Chefs in the San Francisco Examiner's annual list and later, I was invited to be a guest chef at the James Beard House as part of their Chef Discovery Series.
After six challenging, yet highly rewarding, years at the helm of Zinzino I was burnt out from the demands of chaotic restaurant life and decided to shift gears to become the private chef for a family in Silicon Valley. I had a great time cooking everything from fine dining menus to baby food and grew to truly love the family. After more than a decade at that job I began to yearn for the freedom that came with being my own boss. In November 2014 I decided to enter yet another realm of the food industry and launched Bijou Catering in San Francisco. My goal in becoming a caterer was to fill what I saw as an untapped niche, a chef for hire who specialized in small events, and in 2018 I moved myself and the business to Los Angeles. Being both the chef and owner not only allows me to have complete control over my business but also guarantees that I am involved in every step of the process from designing the menu to sweeping the floors at the end of the night. At Bijou my focus is to think outside the box and offer unique experiences by creating imaginative, seasonally inspired food. I use my expertise to construct dishes that emphasize the delicate balance of complimentary and contrasting flavors, textures and appearances. In 2019 I expanded the business, and today in addition to offering my small event services, I have also started teaching a variety of cooking classes, offering home and office meal delivery and creating trendy grazing tables, boards and gift boxes for any occasion.
Activities and Accomplishments:
CCD Innovation Chef's Council - product development
Lotus Eater SF pop-up dinner series - co-creator/chef: lotuseatersf.wordpress.com
Castlemont Elementary School Garden, Campbell, CA - volunteer cooking instructor
San Francisco Book Review- cookbook reviewer
James Beard House, New York, NY Discovery Series - guest chef
San Francisco Examiner - named one of the "Ten Best Chefs You Don't Know Yet"
Bay Cafe- guest chef, two episodes