Tom Pedersen

Executive Chef

            With over 25 years of experience in the restaurant and catering industry, Tom is well prepared for this role. Tom grew up on the family farm in central Minnesota, where he learned the culinary arts of baking, preserving, pasteurizing milk, and butchering wild game. He also worked at his grandmother’s busy café, serving the crowds during hunting and fishing season.

     Tom began his professional career at the famous Charlie’s Café Exceptionale in Minneapolis. Their philosophy “quality is paramount and if it can be made in-house, it is” has remained Tom’s guiding principle. Later, Tom worked as restaurant chef at Amfac Hotel’s The Fifth Season in Minneapolis considered to be first restaurant offering regional American cuisine.

     Tom continued as executive chef in large hotels, such as the Bass family owned property in Texas and Carlson Companies International properties in suburban DC, Moscow, and Szczecin, Poland. Tom’s wife Mary, and daughters Emily and Alice, lived with him in Poland for a year. While working for Radisson, Tom had the opportunity to assist in hotel openings in Spain, Japan, Moscow and Sochi, Russia, serving such distinguished guests as the royal families of Norway and Sweden, as well as Boris Yeltsin and former president Bill Clinton.

     Chef Pedersen has worked with Restaurant Associates and Wolfgang Puck divisions of the Compass group for over eight years. He has worked at the Smithsonian Museum of American History and opened the Café Aquaria at the popular Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta.

     Tom received the Distinguished Visiting Chef award from Johnson and Wales in Rhode Island, and first place award in Sebastiani Vineyards food and wine competition in Napa Valley, CA. He resides just outside of Atlanta, GA, with his wife, Mary Margaret.