Chef Wylie Dufresne of wd~50

In this can't miss podcast, one of the greatest culinary minds America has ever produced, Chef Wiley Dufresne, sits down with Eli to discuss his journey as a chef and modernist cuisine champion. Curiosity has been a leading edge for everything Chef Wiley does, and as one of the first chefs to start asking questions about the chemistry and science behind cooking, he began to develop his own New York version of modern cuisine. Working with food scientists and modernist chefs around the globe, he began to blend his own creativity and curiosity to bend the rules of cooking as we knew it, creating dishes such as pickled beef tongue with fried mayonnaise, foie gras tied in knots, and a frozen "everything bagel" with smoked salmon threads and crispy cream cheese, just to name a few.  

Chef Wylie Dufresne, the mastermind behind Stretch Pizza, Du's Donuts (@dus_donuts), the world renowned WD~50 and Alder restaurants in New York City, was instrumental in the Modernist food movement in America during the early 2000s and is one of the most respected chefs in the country.

Before his last year as a philosophy student at Maine’s Colby College, Wylie Dufresne went home and took a job at the iconic Providence, Rhode Island restaurant, Al Forno. That summer was a major turning point for Dufresne. After graduation, he enrolled at The French Culinary Institute in New York, marrying two skillsets—in philosophy and gastronomy—that would ignite one imaginative career.

WD50 his experimental restaurant where he explored the outer reaches of molecular gastronomy opened in 2003. His food was playful, witty, full of wizardry and ingenuity. He was constantly questioning and had no boundaries. His restaurant was huge inspiration for chefs globally. As Rene Redzepi has said of his friend: "he was so ahead of the curve that there was a time when chefs internationally were constantly checking his website in awe." Dufresne won the James Beard Foundation for best New York Chef in 2013. Alder playfully cubist version of pub grub. Unfortunately, real estate plans close to his restaurants forced him to close WD50 in 2014 and Alder in 2015.

Most recently, Dufresne has started a pop up pizza venture stretch pizza.