Gary Danko

Chef-owner, Restaurant Gary Danko
San Francisco, California

Though many of us can talk about cookbook authors who’ve

influenced our cooking, few of us can say that we tracked down

those cookbook authors and insisted that they become our

mentors. But such was the case with chef Gary Danko and his

hero, French cooking teacher Madeleine Kamman.

“At the CIA, I came across Madeleine’s book The Making of a

Cook,” he tells me from the kitchen island in his San Francisco

apartment. “Her book sang to me. What she was writing about, I

had the same ideas about. It was a whole new style of cooking.”

When Kamman came to the States to teach a class in New

Hampshire, Danko immediately called her to enroll. He imitates

her thick French accent: “Oh, I’m sorry, Gary; we are full, full,

full.”

When Danko persisted, Kamman moaned, “Gary, will you

please give me the dignity!”

When he asked if it was because he was a man (Kamman was a

noted feminist), she snapped, “You are full of shit!”

Eventually, though, not only did he win a seat in her class, he

also became her assistant and traveled with her to France. Her

lessons still inform his cooking to this day. “Madeleine was