Greg Baker

Title: Freelancer

Location: Tampa, Florida

Education: Western Culinary Institute

Greg is a former chef/restaurateur with almost 40 years of hands-on restaurant experience. He retired from the restaurant industry in 2019 and set his sights on honing a craft he didn't realize he had until a few years earlier; writing. Greg has expert-level knowledge of cooking equipment, outdoor cooking, vegetable, meat, and seafood cookery, sustainable agriculture and fisheries, history as it relates to food, traditional Florida foodways, sustainable workplaces, mental health issues in the restaurant industry, and food as it affects our way of life. His written work has appeared in/on Food Republic, Tampa Tribune, Tampa Bay Times, Tasting Table, Florida Politics, Food & Wine, and Serious Eats.

Highlights:

Semi-Finalist, Best New Restaurant, James Beard Foundation, 2011
Semi-Finalist, Best Chef, South, James Beard Foundation 2012-2016
Featured in the Wall Street Journal's "Chefs Speak Out on Mental Health in the Restaurant Industry" 2018

Experience

Greg is an all-around food nerd who thrives on understanding the whys as much as the hows of food, whether it's how it's grown or brought to the plate. His years as a chef, utilizing a myriad of cooking tools, left him in the unique position to evaluate and relate the quality and worth of a product.

Favorite Purchase:

My favorite purchase was a Forschner ten-inch chef's knife for $37 in 1992. It's lasted decades in commercial kitchens and I still use it today.

Education

Culinary Arts, Western Culinary Institute, Portland, OR, 1987

About Serious Eats

Serious Eats, a Dotdash brand, is an award-winning food and drink website visited by over 7 million hungry readers every month. Our audience comes to us for rigorously tested recipes, science-driven cooking techniques, robust equipment reviews, and stories that offer cultural and historical context to the foods we love to eat.

Dotdash is among the largest and fastest growing publishers online, and has won over 50 awards in the last year alone, including Digiday's 2020 Publisher of the Year. Dotdash brands include Verywell, Investopedia, The Balance, The Spruce, Simply Recipes, Serious Eats, Byrdie, Brides, MyDomaine, Lifewire, TripSavvy, Liquor.com, and TreeHugger.