Chef Bruce

Bruce is a Chef: his professional background includes three decades as a published, televised, and awarded chef in Texas, San Francisco, and Ontario; a decade as a successful restaurateur; a long-time local and organic foods advocate and activist (as a founding director of the Kemptville Farmers’ Market and the General Manager of Two Rivers Food Hub). More recently, he was the Executive/Product Development Chef for Ottawa’s Natural Food Pantry chain and is currently the lead writer/researcher for international food television disruptor, Gusto Worldwide Media.

Bruce began cooking in his parents’ restaurant, Samuel’s Fine Foods at the ripe young age of “tall enough to reach the stove” and has kept an almost unbroken string of cooking jobs until the present — notably, he spent 7 years as the Sous Chef at San Francisco’s highly regarded vegan mecca, Millennium Restaurant — during his tenure there he was the co-author with Executive Chef Eric Tucker of the restaurant’s well reviewed second cookbook The Artful Vegan (Ten Speed Press, 2003)

Together, Bruce and his wife, Chef Nicole LeBlanc owned and operated The Branch Texas Grill for 10 years– a popular and well known authentic (local and organic) Texas BBQ destination in Kemptville, Ontario. The Branch served food that drew national recognition on the Food Network’s ‘You Gotta Eat Here‘ and even an invitation to cook at the Prime Minister’s residence;

A native Texan, a current Canadian (by way of seven years in San Francisco), Bruce is married to Chef Nicole LeBlanc and a father to Abigail who is on the Autism Spectrum; Abigail’s highly specific dietary needs lead Nicole and Bruce to create a low carb bread substitute which Nicole has since built into a successful business, Love My Buns, a unique product that serves the Paleo, Low-Carb, Keto and Gluten-Free communities.

In his long career as a chef, Bruce has also helmed the kitchen at Austin’s Asti Trattoria, worked as sous chef to Chef David Garrido at Jeffrey’s (Austin’s answer to Chez Panisse), and held a senior creative development position at Austin’s longest continuously operating vegetarian restaurant Mother’s Cafe and Garden.