John Ash

Chef, Cookbook Author, TV Host, Food & Wine Expert

John Ash has been called a visionary chef that helped lay the culinary groundwork for today’s popular, delicious wine country cuisine. He is a passionate advocate of fresh ingredients and their basic, unique flavors, and in knowing where, when, and how food is grown and raised.

Early Years

His culinary career began in 1980 when he opened John Ash & Company Restaurant in Santa Rosa, California. In 1985 he came to national prominence when Food & Wine Magazine selected him as one of America’s hot new chefs. In 1990, John Ash left Santa Rosa to become Culinary Director at the Fetzer Vineyards Wine Center in Hopland, California, with its huge, organic culinary garden supplying fresh ingredients and inspiration.

Current Projects

Acclaimed as an expert food and wine educator, John Ash teaches at cooking schools and institutions worldwide, including the Culinary Institute of America. Since 1999, Ash has overseen the professional educational programs as Dean of the Brown-Forman Center for Global Wine Education.

Widely regarded as “the father of wine country cuisine”, it is teaching that John Ash loves most. He believes that the process of cooking is a great amount of fun, and that what you cook is more important than how you cook. Traveling the world, or communicating through his books and on the air, John Ash answers all the questions he himself once sought the answers for, and the result is an awareness and sense of adventure that will bring delicious pleasures to your table.

Recognition

A frequent contributor to publications like Bon Appetit and Fine Cooking magazines, John Ash is also a regular columnist for the Los Angeles Times Syndicate. He has hosted two series on the Food Network and has a live radio show in Northern California. His second cookbook, From the Earth to the Table: John Ash’s Wine Country Cuisine won the Julia Child International Association of Culinary Professionals’ Cookbook of the Year Award, and his latest book, John Ash: Cooking One on One: Private Lessons in Simple, Contemporary Food from a Master Teacher is the quintessential example of his talent and passion as an educator.