David Kinch

David Kinch has forged a distinctive culinary career path at Manresa, known for new contemporary California cuisine for 20 years. In 2006, Manresa was No. 48 on the World's 50 Best Restaurants list, and in 2007 the Los Gatos restaurant earned two Michelin stars. A decade later, it upgraded to three Michelin stars, which it maintained until closing in 2022. Kinch's culinary philosophy is fostered by the terroir, or "sense of place," of the California Coast and the kind of ingredient-driven cooking and modern technique he has studied around the world.

A New Orleans native, chef David Kinch got his start as a 16-year-old cook at Commander's Palace in 1977. He spent much of the next two decades racking up kitchen experience around the world. He staged in Europe — at L'Espérance in St-Père-en-Vézelay, France, and Akelarre in San Sebastián, Spain, among other places — and consulted on an American restaurant at the Hotel Clio Court in Fukuoka, Japan. After working in New York, Kinch decamped to the West Coast, eventually opening his flagship, Manresa, in 1992. The highly acclaimed restaurant is known for reopening after California wildfire damage twice.

Kinch graduated from Johnson & Wales Culinary Academy in Providence, Rhode Island.

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