Moncef Meddeb (died March 26, 2019) was an American chef and founder of

L'Espalier ''L’Espalier'' was a French restaurant located in Boston, Massachusetts, in the Back Bay neighborhood, adjacent to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. The chef and owner of L'Espalier was Frank McClelland, who received a James Beard Foundation Award ...

Boston's first

Le Cordon Bleu Le Cordon Bleu (French for " The Blue Ribbon") is an international network of hospitality and culinary schools teaching French '' haute cuisine''. Its educational focuses are hospitality management, culinary arts, and gastronomy. The institut ...

restaurant.

Biography

Meddeb, the son of Tunisian immigrants, grew up in Paris. He emigrated to the United States in the late 1960s. He met Suzanne Owen, a Peace Corps volunteer, while he was in Tunis and working in a bank. They married and moved in with her father in Connecticut. He attended the

University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, approximately a half hour's drive from H ...

before transferring to

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher ...

and graduating with a political science degree. His first cooking job was when he was at Harvard, working at the

Harvard Square Harvard Square is a triangular plaza at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue, Brattle Street and John F. Kennedy Street near the center of Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The term "Harvard Square" is also used to delineate the busin ...

restaurant Casablanca. Another source says his first job was at the adjacent Algiers Cafe as a dishwasher. He later worked as the Main Chef at 7 Central in Manchester by the sea. He opened

in 1978 selling it to Frank McClelland in 1988. He opened the restaurant 8 Holyoke in Cambridge and Aigo Bistro in

Concord, Massachusetts Concord () is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. At the 2020 census, the town population was 18,491. The United States Census Bureau considers Concord part of Greater Boston. The town center is near where the confl ...

where he hired

Ana Sortun Oleana “Ana” Sortun is a chef, restaurateur and author in the Boston area. Biography Sortun was born in Seattle. After she graduated from La Varenne Ecole de Cuisine de Paris, she came to Massachusetts to open Moncef Meddeb’s Argo Bistro f ...

Awards and honors

^Who’s Who of Food & Beverage in America,

James Beard Foundation The James Beard Foundation is a New York City-based national non-profit culinary arts organization named in honor of James Beard, a prolific food writer, teacher, and cookbook author, who was also known as the "Dean of American Cookery." The prog ...

1985

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Meddeb, Moncef 1940s births 2019 deaths American people of Tunisian descent American male chefs Year of birth missing People from Paris People from Tunis Harvard College alumni University of Connecticut alumni American restaurateurs Chefs from Massachusetts