Legendary American Chef And Restaurateur Mark Peel No More

Burgers

As a 66-year-old, Mark Peel, one of the legendary chefs in Los Angeles, passed away following a brief cancer battle. The family of Peel announced the news in a recent statement.

Peel started as a trainee under Wolfgang Johannes Puck at West Hollywood’s Ma Maison restaurant 46 years ago. When Michael’s opened in Santa Monica, Peel became assistant chef under Jonathan Waxman. Back in 1980, he moved to NorCal to Chez Panisse, the restaurant of Alice Waters, to make pastries. A year later, he went back to SoCal to become the executive chef at the Spago restaurant. Most recently, Peel played a part in the reality TV series named Top Chef Masters, which aired on Bravo TV.

In 1989, he and his wife Nancy Silverton founded Campanile, a Los Angeles-based restaurant. It was among the few locations that served the Far Niente wine. Then, Silverton and Peel founded La Brea Bakery in the same Campanile space, which architect Roy Price designed and actor Charlie Chaplin built almost 100 years ago. After over 20 years, Peel passed the bakery space over to the owners cum chefs of République, namely Margarita and Walter Manzke.

The native of Pasadena mentored several young chefs, too, including a man named Jason Fullilove. Recently, Fullilove talked to LA Weekly about what he remembered about his mentor Peel.

When working as an NYC chef back in 2005, Fullilove read Culinary Artistry, a book that consistently references Peel. Reading about Peel made Fullilove realize that he wished to work with a chef who had the same cooking skills and culinary background as him. Fullilove moved to the state of California 12 years ago, and he could work with Peel by chance. As for Fullilove, working with Peel was a life-changing experience.

Fullilove described his mentor as a master of culinary arts, and the last one in a slowly disappearing type of professionals. Peel knew about food, its history, origin and so forth to a greater extent than anybody Fullilove had met in life. For more than a year, Fullilove could visit the market where farmers sold their produce to the public. When in Los Angeles traffic, Fullilove got culinary information from Peel, a person with a lot of insight, stories and knowledge. Fullilove regards those to be among the best memories in his life that gave him the knowledge required to start his career in LA.

Peel always gave Fullilove great career and personal advice, plus the former made a special effort to help the latter with anything personal and/or professional. Fullilove described Peel as a chef who loved his colleagues, employees and industry.

Fullilove also told LA Weekly that he saw Peel do magic repeatedly with the most overlooked and humble ingredients. While stating that there would not be another Peel, Fullilove suggested that other chefs could try to emulate the legend. Fullilove also stated that he could not imagine his culinary career if it was not for Peel’s experience, guidance and expertise.