David Hagedorn

About

David Hagedorn grew up in Gadsden, Alabama and Pittsburgh, Penn. before moving to Washington, DC to attend Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, where he graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service degree. He also attended the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and spent a year of undergraduate study at the Sorbonne and Sciences Po in Paris and graduate study in Bologna, Italy. He speaks French and Italian fluently. Eschewing the diplomatic field, Hagedorn entered the restaurant business, enjoying a 25-year career as a cook, acclaimed chef and restaurateur before becoming a food journalist in 2005. He is also a content creator, food and travel influencer and restaurant consultant whose opinons, expertise and observations translate into revenue. He served on the James Beard Foundation's Restaurant and Chef Awards Committee for several years, manifesting his influence at the highest levels of the restaurant and hospitality industries. After making his writing debut in 2005 in the Washington Post with “On Cheapskates and Scams,” a provocative portrayal of his break-up with the dining public, Hagedorn became a columnist there, creating Chef on Call; Real Entertaining; Sourced; and The Process, for which he explored how chefs turn inspiration into creative reality. He developed and published over 300 original recipes for the Post. Hagedorn is the dining columnist for Arlington Magazine and Bethesda Magazine. He also co-authors cookbooks for celebrity chefs, who know his reputation for writing proposals that garner substantial advances and appreciate that his experience as a professional chef and recipe developer shortcuts the collaboration process. He penned the cookbook/memoir “The New Jewish Table” (St. Martin’s Press, 2013) for noted chef Todd Gray and his wife, Ellen; “My Irish Table: Recipes from the Homeland and Restaurant Eve” (Ten Speed Press, 2014) for award-winning chef Cathal Armstrong; and "Rasika: Flavors of India" (Ecco, 2017), written for restaurateur Ashok Bajaj and James Beard Award-winning chef Vikram Sunderam. Hagedorn is deeply involved in community affairs. He created Washington, DC's most significant restaurant-based fundraisers: the Chef's Best Benefit for Food & Friends in 1990 (which continues to this day and has made millions of dollars through the years) and, in 2012, Chefs for Equality for the Human Rights Campaign. Hagedorn is currently working on his own book, as well as cookbook projects for other well-known chefs.