We were lucky to catch up with David George recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, David thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you share a story with us from back when you were an intern or apprentice? Maybe it’s a story that illustrates an important lesson you learned or maybe it’s a just a story that makes you laugh (or cry)? Looking back at internships and apprenticeships can be interesting, because there is so much variety in people’s experiences – and often those experiences inform our own leadership style.

Back in 2018 I staged at restaurant Central in Lima Peru for two months from a continuing education grant I received from the Bocuse d’or foundation. While I was about halfway through my time at the restaurant, I was asked to make a compound butter using local fruit called sacha tomate which means “tree” in the indigenous language Quechua. The process is caramelizing the milk solids in butter to produce brown butter then adding a puree of the sacha tomate to the brown butter and emulsifying it. Much to my suprise I was making this in the middle of a dinner service and so I added the cold sacha tomate puree to the scolding hot butter and instead of it emulsifying together, it immediately started bubbling and erupted out of all the sides of the pot I was using to make it and basically became a molten volcano that erupted in the middle of the open kitchen. Needless to say all the chefs turned around and looked at me in disappointment. It is definitely a moment I look back on and laugh but at the time I must say I was quite embarrassed.

David , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I was born and raised in the town of Amherst Ohio. I grew up in my father’s award-winning barbeque restaurant. The hospitality industry has played a large role in my family. I started working for my father as a busboy and a dishwasher as soon as I was of age. I soon after started growing my own appreciation for the job and then later found myself moving to NYC to pursue this as a career. In the last seven years of living in New York City I have been fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to pursue numerous unique experiences as a chef and so I use those experiences to influence my menus and to create an experience my clients will cherish for years to come. I am now a full-time private chef based in Manhattan and one of my biggest assets that sets me apart is my ability to cook numerous cuisines, ranging from South / Latin American, European, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean. I love learning about new recipes, techniques and exploring new cuisines. One thing I’d like my current clients and future ones to know is that when you hire me, your expectations will be exceeded.

How did you build your audience on social media?

One of the ways I started building a presence on social media is through continual content posting. Earlier in my time in New York I was quite literally always cooking, I was posting new recipes weekly and providing the amounts of each ingredient used as well as the step by step method on how to make the dishes. I also had an almost nightly quick video of eggs cooking in a mini egg pan and people went crazy for it, they would ask me why I didn’t do it if I skipped a day. This went on for two years. I think engaging with people and being able to show them what makes you unique and keep them engaged with recipes and Q & A’s.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Certainly what has helped me to build my reputation the most is my work ethic. Anyone whose path I’ve crossed in the last seven years will confirm that. I Always made it a point to maintain and improve my reputation amongst my peers as well as working with other talented chefs to put myself in position to succeed. My hard work in restaurants has translated well to the private dining world and when you are a private chef your reputation is everything. There is no middleman it’s just you and the client, so your responsibilities grow immensely from that alone.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: chefdavidgeorge_