Team
Arran Burns, Chef, Corte Madera
Born in Bonneville, France on August 30, 1980 to a woman from Connecticut and a man from Newcastle, England, amidst his many travels, Arran first found his joy for cooking in the southeastern town of Flaine, France.
More popularly hailed as the ski area of the Haute Savoie region of the French Alps, Flaine is where Arran’s father helped his brother manage his two restaurants. Whether it was at the family’s traditional English pub or the Haute Savoie-style French fine dining eatery, when Arran wasn’t playing or skiing, he was both a student and a troublemaker in the kitchen. With a love for danger and the unknown, many of his childhood memories include tinkering with fire, kitchen knives, and face-diving into unassuming bowls of chocolate mousse.
Brought up around restaurants and in a family passionate about food—Arran’s mother and grandmother were also fantastic cooks—his matriculation through Diablo Valley College (DVC)’s culinary school in Concord following high school was a natural transition. Since his first job working mornings and weekends at Bear Claw Bakery in Pinole, California as a high school student, Arran has traveled through many kitchens around the world before finally landing at Pacific Catch in Corte Madera. He worked as the lead cook, banquet chef, and pasty chef at Catt Cora and Michael Chiarello’s former restaurant Postinos in Lafayette, California; as sous chef at Moody’s Bistro in Truckee, California with chef Mark Estee and the renowned Paul Bertoli’s right hand man Guy Frennet; sous chef at Le Perdrix Noire; bartender and kitchen help at The White Grouse Pub in Flaine, France; as well as staged at the Alderly Edge Hotel in Manchester, England.
As Arran’s fascination for cooking, learning, and continuously developing his skills has taken him all around the world and has made him into the accountable and practiced chef he is today, his love for excitement and mischief still persists inside and out of the kitchen. When he’s not working at Pacific Catch, Arran loves drag racing and racecars, reading cartoons and comics, as well as collecting medieval and fantasy weapons including swords and knives. However, above of all, he is a connoisseur of food, laughing, and life.
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