David Posey

From an early age, Blackbird's chef de cuisine David Posey, 30, had an inspired culinary bent. Growing up in Los Angeles, he began cooking when he was ten years old alongside his mother, and worked at a local restaurant in high school. He recalls tasting Alain Giraud's cooking at the notorious Bastide when he was 16 and being blown away. From there it was an energized jump to the Culinary Institute of America in upstate New York, where he snagged an externship at Trio in Chicago and began training under Grant Achatz. Exposed to such a cutting-edge imagination, Posey’s own culinary creative juices started to flow. After graduating, he returned to Chicago to work at Alinea making pastry and as garde manger.

In 2007 he hopped again, this time to chef/restaurateur Paul Kahan's Blackbird, where Posey would feather his nest with many positions from line cook on up to chef de cuisine. His modern dishes and technique continue to dazzle Chicago diners. Posey relishes working with local farmers and purveyors; his menu is ever-changing, but on any given night, his gastronomic visions offer up the likes of roasted elk loin with rutabaga, saffron-quince purée, gruyère and rye bread, as well as honeycrisp sherbet with dulcey and juniper snow.

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