Chef Josh Brown

A twelve-year restaurant veteran, Chef Josh Brown hails from Northern California. At seventeen he began cooking full-time and graduated the School of Culinary Arts at Santa Barbara City College in 2000. Passion instilled, Josh went to work at some of the finer restaurants in Santa Barbara with the goal of one day opening his own, intimate fine dining restaurant.

In 2002, Chef Brown joined the staff at bouchon santa barbara, was quickly promoted to sous-chef and since 2003 has run the bouchon santa barbara kitchen.

Seagrass owner Mitchell Sjerven approached Chef Brown in the Spring of 2007 with the opportunity to run a 2nd kitchen, Santa Barbara's first fine dining seafood restaurant, and Seagrass was hatched. Chef Brown was instrumental in the creative process that led to the opening of Seagrass Restaurant, traveling to San Francisco and Seattle to survey the seafood landscape in two 'seafood and culinary' capitals of the West Coast.

"It's great working with Mitchell because he understands conceptually what he wants, insisting-- as I do-- on the highest quality ingredients but then giving me the freedom to create everything on the menu", says Chef Brown. "I've always thoroughly enjoyed working with seafood, and especially fresh fish. There is something almost religious for me in a perfectly seared portion of incredibly fresh fish."

Those before me who have paved the way- inspired me to become a Chef and influenced my decision to do so in the fine dining world- include Thomas Keller, Daniel Boulud and Alice Waters. I'm especially appreciative of my time with Chef Charles Fredericks, says Chef Brown, who inspired me to "allow the food to tell me how to cook it."

Chef Brown dreams of owning his own restaurant one day. "I want to take advantage of the incredible bounty of local ingredients", says Chef Brown, "while continuing to live in the paradise we call Santa Barbara!"

Professional highlights:

Working with Julia Child at local charity events, 2002
Cooking with Food Network's Bobby Flay on "FoodNation", 2004
Chef on California TV show on "Bringing It Home with Laura McIntosh", 2005
Guest Chef at Disneyworld's 'Int'l Food & Wine Pavillion', Epcot Center, 2005
James Beard Journailism Awards Guest Chef, Park Hyatt New York, 2005
Representing the State of California as Guest Chef at Hilton Frankfurt, 2006
Teaching cooking classes on a frequent basis at bouchon santa barbara