I met Chef Bernard Guil­las, Exec­u­tive Chef and Food and Bev­er­age Man­ager of Marine Room, La Jolla Shores Hotel, and the La Jolla Beach and Ten­nis Club at a Cor­po­rate Chefs In Amer­i­can con­fer­ence in San Fran­cisco and was impressed to learn how suc­cess­ful and his part­ner, Chef Ron Oliver , Chef de Cui­sine at Marine Room. Their first cook­book, Fly­ing Pans, Two Chefs, One World became the Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion of Culi­nary Pro­fes­sion­als Cook­book Of The Year in 2011.

On my recent trip to La Jolla, I inter­viewed Chef Bernard at Marine Room to learn more about his per­spec­tive of food, food ser­vice, and build­ing a per­sonal brand in which Chef Bernard is very accom­plished in all three of these areas. A vibrant high pro­file chef and culi­nary pro­fes­sional, his con­nec­tion with food and farm­ing is a nat­ural for him from churn­ing but­ter and work­ing on a turkey farm as a young child. His con­nec­tion with food taught him respect of sus­tain­able prac­tices, being a good stew­ard of land and ani­mals while being suc­cess­ful busi­ness own­ers and chefs.

Chef Bernard began his for­mal train­ing at the Le Bre­tagne Restau­rant in Questem­bert, France, where he appren­ticed with the leg­endary Georges Paineau. An inter­est­ing, diverse, and accom­plished back­ground is reflected in every­thing he does.

An excit­ing arti­cle to write and an amaz­ing culi­nary expe­ri­ence for me, my time with Chef Bernard with be for­ever be a culi­nary expe­ri­ence I will cher­ish. Take a moment to get to know Chef Bernard Guil­las and check out Fly­ing Pans. As I recover from my won­der­ful visit to La Jolla I look for­ward to shar­ing his mes­sage to culi­nary stu­dents and his view of being a pro­fes­sional chef.

One mes­sage he clear­ing deliv­ers is the qual­ity of the ingre­di­ents used, a chefs rela­tion­ship with their farm­ers, and to never quite learn­ing. I’ll admit, I’m a lit­tle awe struck with his tal­ent; tast­ing his food was an expe­ri­ence I’ll never for­get as is the time we spent together for this arti­cle. My wish will be that I am able to con­vey this expe­ri­ence for all to enjoy as well.

Look for part 1 of my inter­view in the Novem­ber 29, 2012 Culi­nary Notes, Restau­rant News of the Rock­ies, and Restau­ra­teur of Ari­zona. For now, here are pic­tures La Happy in La Jolla

Madonna Kash, Food­Ser­vice Geek