How it All Began

Although it may be hard to believe, the founder of The Clandestine Chef, Greg Wertsch, was a cooking disaster prior to founding this revolutionary cooking school. Ironically, it was his lack of cooking experience, frustration with cookbooks, bland tasting dinners, and restaurant fatigue that forced him to search for a good culinary foundation. Greg did the only thing he knew how and he reached out to local cooking schools for help in making cooking fun, quick, and delicious.

Unfortunately the cooking schools Greg attended were neither helpful nor fun. In these classes he found himself in a kitchen nothing like his own; with people he didn’t know, and learning to make food that he wasn’t interested in making. To make matters worse, in these classes Greg only got a few minutes of time with the cooking instructor. Unbelievably, the classes he took were a bigger disaster than his own cooking.

Greg then came to the realization that the only way he was truly going to learn how to cook was with one-on-one instruction in his own home. Again, he did the only logical thing and searched for chefs to come and teach him.

Greg quickly found that personal chefs were expensive, difficult to schedule and provided non-uniform policies and services. This made him question if he was ever going to learn how to cook a decent meal. Greg was forced to explore opening a cooking school which truly catered to its students needs.

Of course, Greg knew it would be insane to attempt such a preposterous endeavor by himself, so he brought in a well respected and amazing veteran chef by the name of Enedina Andrews to head Clandestine Chef’s creative department. Luckily Enedina was as excited about the idea as Greg and a beautiful partnership was born.

Greg and Enedina worked hard to bring Greg’s dream to reality. They created menus, invented new systems and methods, performed test kitchens, hired photographers, media experts, teamed up with the Culinary Institute of America (CIA), and brought on website designers.

Along the way, they realized that students wanted to buy the Culinary Institute of America cookware they were using in their cooking lessons. It turns out, many students were using scratched up, dented, warped pots and pans that they had bought when they were still in college.

Greg and Enedina decided to give students and customers alike the opportunity to purchase the very same, incredible chef designed specialty cookware, that they use in their classes. The cookware that Clandestine Chef uses and sells comes from one of the oldest cooking schools in America - the CIA.

They also realized that in creating The Clandestine Chef, they were in fact also creating a “food hub” where people come to learn about food and great cookware. Because of this, and also because they believe in giving back to their local communities, they founded, “Clandestine Chef Presents.”

Clandestine Chef Presents can be found In The Mix Blog and its purpose is to showcase local restaurants and food businesses which have great atmospheres and wonderful food.

Greg and Enedina sincerely hope that you will enjoy your experience with the Clandestine Chef as much as they have enjoyed bringing it to you.