partner/co-executive chef
from Townhall's press release:
When you meet Mitchell Rosenthal in his whites it is impossible to believe that he wasn’t planning to become a chef all of his life. Ironically, that wasn’t always the case. Rosenthal had an interest in photojournalism while attending art school at Manhattan’s School of Visual Arts, when a cookbook unexpectedly changed his life. Mitchell bought Paul Prudhomme’s ‘Louisiana Kitchen’ and cooked some of the recipes at the Jack Cooper Celebrity Deli in New Jersey where he had worked since age sixteen. The customers absolutely loved it and at that moment Mitchell says, ‘I just fell in love with cooking. It makes sense to me; both photography and cooking are forms of art. Both are visual.’ He persistently called Paul Prudhomme every Friday for six months until he was accepted as an intern at K. Paul’s. From there a career in cooking became his life.
Mitchell returned to New York and embarked upon the two year comprehensive apprenticeship at the Four Seasons where he met his mentor, Chef Seppi Renggli. Within three months he received the unprecedented honor of being promoted to grill cook and put on salary. He cooked side-by-side Renggli in the Grill Room where a variety of cuisines were offered, from Italian to Indonesian. As Mitchell recalls, 'It wasn't fusion, each cuisine was treated with respect and the dishes were straightforward and elegant. I’ve never met anyone else who could cook so many cuisines so well.'
He then did brief stints at Le Cirque in NYC and Gitane, in NJ with brother Steven, before returning to Four Seasons, and then embarking on culinary travels and cooking for a season in St. Lucia. In 1989, he contacted Wolfgang Puck who was opening Postrio in San Francisco and became one of the opening cooks. He left Postrio after a year to further explore the culinary treasures of Asia with a three month journey through Hong Kong, Thailand and India, and then traveled through Europe. Upon returning to the US he worked for Wolfgang Puck at his Mediterranean restaurant, Granita in Malibu and then at the Italian restaurant Coco Pazza in NY. In 1994, Mitchell and Steven returned to San Francisco to become the executive chefs at Postrio.
Town Hall provides Mitchell the first opportunity to own a restaurant and cook as he chooses. That, in his case, is ‘Mitchell’ food; straightforward, yet refined, classics done with a twist. And, don’t hold him to any one dish, 'I'm fickle,' Rosenthal smiles.
--
<BACK TO TOP>