Chef D Story

As a young girl, Chef D fell in love with food and cooking. Her Rockport based grandparents raised her on garden grown vegetables and the freshest seafood on earth in Rockport, MA. When marketing for tech didn’t fulfill her, she risked it all to go back to culinary school. Now 10 years later she’s a renowned chef and creative force behind some of the best food in LA. She’s trained in France and England but feels most at home with a lobster tail and a caprese salad overlooking Back Beach.

She graduated with a BA in Advertising and Marketing from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and after a brief stint working in the financial sector in Boston Diana came back to her true passion in the culinary arts.

The Chef then moved to Los Angeles and began formal training at L.A. Trade Tech Culinary School. While in school, Diana catered weddings and worked in the kitchens with popular Los Angeles Chefs such as Joe Miller and also Diana worked on the line at Grace Restaurant under celebrated Los Angeles Chef Neal Fraser. In 2006, Fraser opened BLD Restaurant on Beverly Blvd. and Diana was promoted to Sous Chef at the new eatery.

She became an integral part of BLD Restaurant and by 2008 was running the kitchen as Chef de Cuisine. Chef developed a passion for smoking various proteins: trout, brisket, pork chops and tofu. She also catered to the vegetarian/vegan clientele and created the “Vegan Benedict” with house smoked tofu bacon, and the “Vegan Chickpea Burger” with Jalapeno Cashew Cheese.

In 2010 she was awarded Rising Star Chef of Los Angeles by StarChefs and appeared on several television shows such as Food Networks “The Best Thing I Ever Ate”, KTLA’s morning show, Channel 5 News and as a guest judge on “The Next Food Network Star”.

After four years of successfully running the high-volume, seasonally driven kitchen of BLD, Diana planned a culinary expedition in France. It was time for the Chef to travel and cook outside of America, prepare authentic regional French cuisine, learn classic and groundbreaking techniques, and taste the food of the country. During her time in Paris she staged under Michelin Star Chef Giles Epie at Citrus Etoile and renowned Chef Gregory Marchand of Frenchie’s. While traveling the French countryside Chef Diana visited farms, milked cow’s, prepared French cheeses, and pressed walnuts into the finest oils. After completing her final stage preparing baguettes and pastries at an Artisanal Boulangerie she felt accomplished.

Diana returned to America and settled into the Bay Area. She consulted local farms on sustainability and farm to table cooking in the community and spent a great deal of time creating and cooking with one of her favorite seasonally market driven Chef’s, Chef Jose Ugalde of Café Gibraltar.

She returned to Los Angeles and accepted a contract position at Back on the Beach Café in Santa Monica. Hired by the owners to redesign the breakfast, lunch and dinner menus and implement house prepared, seasonal, local cuisine. Chef Diana successfully implemented effective systems and procedures in order to provide extensive vendor savings, reduced ticket times, and increased check averages. In addition she was highly focused on reducing labor costs and providing the owners with documented training and prep procedures and a Back on the Beach House recipe book.

The most recent of her culinary adventures took place in England at the River Cottage HQ where she staged with celebrity Chef and food sustainability pioneer Chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall . On the farm she was able to participate with the team in many activities such as Nose to Tail demos, Mushroom foraging, soft and hard cheese preparations and the smoking of lots of game from the farm. Diana was thoroughly inspired by farm and its’ 100 acres of livestock, produce, fruit, and fish and amazed at the passion and dedication the Chef’s had towards full utilization all the products.

Diana was thoroughly inspired by the farm and its’ 100 acres of livestock, produce, fruit, and fish, she returned to Los Angeles, where she was tapped to create Manhattan Beach’s newest locavore concept, Manhattan House. Involved as a Partner from the start, she worked with the team to establish a business plan, design and develop the restaurant and managed the composition and construction of the kitchen renovation. At Manhattan house she created an inventive Brunch and Dinner menu with a hyper-local focus that digs into her passion for farming & sustainability. From her community gardens at local elementary schools, and garden centers, to her use of humanely raised local animals, Stavaridis strived to support the South Bay community.

Stavaridis was also deeply involved with Growing Great, a non-profit that works to educate every child through healthy science-based gardening and nutrition. They collaborated to form the Junior Chef program where she ran focus groups for over 200 Elementary School students with the organization. The program allowed students to plant and harvest produce grown at their school, and ultimately design, develop, test and create a monthly dish for the Manhattan House dinner menu.

Stavaridis was awarded Rising Star Chef of Los Angeles by StarChefs, and has appeared on several television shows such as Food Networks “The Best Thing I Ever Ate”, as a guest judge on “The Next Food Network Star,” and appeared on “A&E’s Man vs. Child: Chef Showdown.”

Currently Chef D is running the Culinary Program for Beyond Meat. She spearheads R&D on new products, colaborates with Sales & Markeiting on new client acquisitions with food presentations and manages the recipe development for all Beyond Meat social & external colaborations.