BRADFORD KENT

Bradford Kent is simply crazy about food. Whether Brad is working on his 61st iteration of improvement to his signature artisan dough recipe or if he tastes (perhaps poisonous) berries off a foreign-looking shrub while vacationing in Panama, he never stops searching for flavor, gastronomic discovery or culinary challenge. Brad is convinced that food must be prepared without ego and that ingredients rule the kitchen, not the chef. Although Brad has been cooking since the age of 7 (his first recipe was hollandaise sauce from his mom’s Gourmet cookbook), he never thought seriously about cooking until his last year as a marketing major in the business school at the University of Southern California. In 1991, while his professor was debating whether macroeconomics would exist without the LM Curve, Brad was reading Gourmet Magazine and planning his future. He decided at that point to put his business knowledge and culinary passions to the test and started For Starters Catering, a catering business that focused on tapas and small plate appetizers.

In 1992 Brad founded Bacchus Wine and Catering, a food and wine pairing business that specialized in catering social events, wine education and tastings. People loved his food and restaurants began inquiring about consulting for their menus and kitchen staff training. As that consulting business grew, Brad felt it necessary to get formal culinary training and in 1994 enrolled at the Culinary Institute of America. After graduating from CIA in 1996, Brad was recruited for another opportunity that promised challenge. This time, he was asked to work as a food scientist and use his culinary and business acumen to design innovative food products for the nutritional and natural products industry. He successfully developed several novel products including a vegetarian burger, high protein sports nutrition beverages and a low carbohydrate tortilla chip fortified with antioxidants and omega fatty acids.

Hungry for deeper knowledge, Brad was accepted into the food science and nutrition degree program at California State University Long Beach in 1998. As an intern in Sensory Science at ConAgra Foods in Fullerton, California, Brad was then hired as a consultant for them to develop a line of tomato products for Hunt’s foods that was sold internationally in 1999. He took a job at the prestigious United States Department of Defense research labs in Natick, MA in 2000 where he was assigned all-natural, preservative free development projects for improving the texture, nutrition and flavor of field rations for our soldiers. He won two awards for the line of products he developed for the German Military in 2002. Brad moved back to California that year to serve as a research chef to work for a natural foods manufacturing company to support, design and develop products for natural foods giants like Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s. Many of the products Brad has developed are available nationally.

Brad is always up for a culinary challenge and in 2003 embarked on the cooking opportunity of a lifetime as a private chef on a motor yacht that traveled from the Northwest, through Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and the Northeast. Although he knew he would be devastatingly seasick during the voyage, he relished the idea of the challenge of preparing fine meals in the most remote corners of the earth. He took this opportunity to begin his research on wood fired pizzas and began developing his dough recipe for Olio Pizzeria & Café.

In 2007 Brad purchased his first wood fired oven and opened Farmers Market Pizza, a mobile catering business that prepared made-to-order wood fired pizzas at several farmers markets in the Los Angeles area using ingredients direct from the farmers. The catering business for Farmers Market Pizza became so brisk he had to give up the farmers markets and was asked to consult for a number of national pizza projects. 2010 was a big year for Brad as his first child, Iris Elizabeth was born and he finally realized his dream by building Olio Pizzeria & Café on a prominent corner on West 3rd Street in Los Angeles.

Bradford Kent lives in Los Angeles with his wife Mandy and daughter Iris.

Over his Career, Bradford Kent has developed products and consulted for:
Starbucks, Sam’s Club, Costco, Trader Joe’s, Fresh and Easy, PF Changs, California Pizza Kitchen and many others

Bradford has catered events for:
Tesla Motors, Giada @ Home TV Show, Hammer Museum, Prince Edward, President Bush Sr., NYC Fashion Week, Neiman Marcus, Republican National Convention, City of Calabasas, numerous Hollywood elite for private parties, numerous weddings, birthdays, baby showers, dinner parties, bar-mitzvahs and civic and private special events