Chris Cosentino Biography

Chris Cosentino grew up in Rhode Island and even as a young man he always knew he wanted to become a chef. Long before Cosentino rose to recognition after winning Top Chef Masters and appearing on multiple Iron Chef competitions, he attended and graduated from Johnson & Wales University, one of the nation’s most prestigious institutions for the culinary arts.

Chris’s earlier gigs were as a chef at Red Sage and Kinkead’s, both located in Washington, DC. Rubicon, in San Francisco was his next stop, followed by such prestigious restaurants as Chez Panisse, Belon, and the Coach House. Cosentino was part of the team that opened MGM Grand Las Vegas’s Nobhill, but eventually he returned to San Francisco to work at Incanto, where he has remained since 2002.

Chris Cosentino has appeared on a number of food-related television shows, including Iron Chef, Chefs vs. City, No Reservations, The Best Thing I Ever Ate, Bizarre Foods, and Time Machine Chefs. In 2012, Cosentino won Bravo’s Top Chef Masters competition, and he continues to appear on similar shows as contestant, judge, or guest.

Known now for this “whole-animal” culinary focus, Chris’s cuisine focuses on an awareness of and respect for food producing animals and, as part of that, a desire to make use of as much of the animal as possible. The philosophy has become part of Incanto’s famous “head-to-tail” dinners, where haute offal cuisine is the focus, serving such delicacies as chocolate-blood panna cotta. The restaurant’s rustic Italian menu also focuses on parts of the animal which would usually be discarded in today’s modern cuisine, but would have been necessary staples in the old world.

Chris Cosentino continues his career as one of America’s most innovative chefs. Although Incanto has recently changed its name to Porcellino and its style to a more casual dining environment, Chris continues to work as its chef, bringing his unique style of cuisine to patrons.