Chef Dan Martinez

 Sommelier Don Hackett

 Sommelier Don Hackett & Chef Melissa Pelkey-Hass

 Chef Gloria Smiley

Chef Kyle Shankman

Chef Lisa Fernandez has been in the culinary industry since 1995 when she entered culinary school. After a few years on the cuisine side of the kitchen, she started helping out on the pastry side and realized that that is where she really belonged. She has worked as a private chef, and a pastry chef at hotels, country clubs, bakeries, and restaurants. She taught baking and pastry at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts for 13 years. It was there where she realized her love for teaching. Although very fluent in bread baking, viennoiserie, and edible showpieces, her true talent is in cake decorating. Chef Fernandez is a Certified Culinary Educator with the American Culinary Federation and a Certified Baker with The Retail Bakers Guild of America.

Chef Mark has been cooking professionally since 2013. He started this second career as a chef after 25 years serving in the Air Force. He has been in the kitchen most of his life, being the oldest of five boys. He comes to us after teaching with Sur la Table for two years, where he was the Culinary Lead for the Resident Chef.. He has also worked as a prep cook for Keswick Resort and Shadwells Restaurant, both in Charlottesville VA.

I attended culinary school at the Arts Institute of Atlanta and graduated with a four-year degree in Culinary Arts and Foodservice Management in 2008. I started my career in a place I never could have imagined or had prepared for, a sushi bar. Training with Chef Saito Saito, a Sushi Chef from Japan, I learned the ins and outs of everything related to sushi. I also spent time getting to know other sushi chefs in Atlanta and some even let me work at their sushi bars. A woman behind the sushi bar is not generally accepted so I felt honored that they recognized me as a fellow Chef. Eventually Chef Saito went on to open other sushi restaurants in Atlanta and I remained to run the sushi bar for five years.

As much as I enjoyed sushi, I left to pursue other types of cuisine and took a job with Four Seasons Hotel Atlanta. I worked with them for several years before accepting a job at Miller Union where I trained under Chef Steven Satterfield. Chef Satterfield won the James Beard Award for Best Chef Southeast in 2017 and I was fortunate enough to be a part of the team at Miller Union for four years.

Melissa has used her culinary skills to compete in cooking and recipe competitions locally and nationwide. Her craft has earned over 320 State Fair Blue Ribbons, 160 Red Ribbons and titles of Spam Champion, Fleishman's Yeast Baking Champion, Hidden Valley Ranch Recipe Winner, and the Chicago Cutlery's "The Cut" Sandwich National Grand Champion to name a few. Melissa has had over 100 recipes published in national publications such as "Taste of Home", "Southern Living", Epicurious.com, and "Healthy Cooking" books and magazines and was recently featured on the cover of Taste of Home for her Gruyere & Egg Burger, deemed best burger in the country.

Melissa created her blog, The Front Porch Gourmet, to give her friends, family and readers a place to talk food, feel at home and share a little Southern humor. She shares all types of recipes from Mama's Southern Fried Chicken to an elaborate Beef Wellington. Melissa has also recently partnered with another blogger to create the Drink.Dine.Do blogsite focusing on gourmet food, luxury travel and lifestyle.

Melissa has used her culinary skills to compete in cooking and recipe competitions locally and nationwide. Her craft has earned over 320 State Fair Blue Ribbons, 160 Red Ribbons and titles of Spam Champion, Fleishman's Yeast Baking Champion, Hidden Valley Ranch Recipe Winner, and the Chicago Cutlery's "The Cut" Sandwich National Grand Champion to name a few. Melissa has had over 100 recipes published in national publications such as "Taste of Home", "Southern Living", Epicurious.com, and "Healthy Cooking" books and magazines and was recently featured on the cover of Taste of Home for her Gruyere & Egg Burger, deemed best burger in the country.

An avid lover of cooking and baking, Paul is no stranger to the kitchen. After college, Paul spent 3 years working in a high-end restaurant in Boston run by a James Beard award winning chef. In 2008, Paul decided to make the transition to the housewares industry and settled in Atlanta, his hometown. Paul has spent the past 12 years managing gourmet retail stores and cooking schools in the Metro-Atlanta area, the last five of which have been at The Cook's Warehouse Midtown location. When he's not at the store, Paul enjoys gardening and spending time with his Pomeranian, Thomas. 

Michelle Pellegri has been a pastry chef and culinary educator since 2004, and is the owner of Roswell Baking Company, a cottage-licensed home baking business. Leaving the corporate world behind, she shifted gears and decided to turn her passion baking and creativity into a new career. She graduated from the culinary program at Chattahoochee Technical College in Marietta, GA and rounded out her education with a transformative culinary internship in France at Ecole de Cuisine La Varenne, under the supervision of Anne Willan.

Michelle is a native Atlantan and first-generation Italian-America. She grew up in a household that valued fresh baked bread and focaccia, made homemade pasta, and grew vegetables; all of which instilled an appreciation for cooking and eating really great food. Michelle's professional pastry experience includes stints at Bacchanalia, Star Provisions, Rainwater, and Varasano's Pizzeria. She teaches baking and cooking classes all around Atlanta and if she could bake one thing, everyday for the rest of her life, it would be croissants.

Chef Min lee began her cooking journey at the age of 14, when she started helping out her parents in their small Korean restaurant in downtown Kentucky, which became one of the top 25 restaurants in the Cincinnati area. There, she gained her passion for food. After high school, she pursued her passion and attended Kendell Culinary College in Chicago, specializing in pastries. After graduating, Min worked at various restaurants and kitchens as a pastry chef. In 2009, she, along with her mother, opened Stone Bowl House on Buford Hwy, in Doraville, GA. There she grew her knowledge of Korean Cuisine. In 2017 Delta Airlines partnered with Stone Bowl House to provide inflight Korean meals for all flights leaving Atlanta to South Korea. In 2022 she and her mom sold Stone Bowl House.

Currently, Chef Min is continuing the relationship with Delta Airlines working as a consultant for their Korean out bound flights. She creates the menu for each course, which is now the menu all US outbound Delta flights to South Korea. Along with coming up with the menu, Min consults with the preparation of each dish and provides quality control. She also started he brand Hansik Meokja, which means “Let’s eat Korean Cuisine”, in Korean. She has participated in several pop ups under her brand.

Naina Bhedwar is an entirely self-taught chef whose passion for food and cooking began when she was barely knee high, mother and grandmothers kitchens. Hailing from two distinct and vibrant Indian communities, the Parsis (originally of Persia) and the Punjabis of India's North, Naina has had the further privilege of living in all four corners of India as well as abroad in Australia, the UK and now, Atlanta. Each home brought with it new and delicious culinary and cultural experiences, allowing a faceted and multilayered love of food to emerge and take a steadfast hold.

Kesar Kitchen, LLC (Kesar is the Hindi term for Saffron ~ Naina's favored spice) offers exciting and interesting ways to present the endlessly varied and incredibly interesting food of India. Naina also offers Persian / Iranian dishes, as a salute to her ancestry, as well as other cuisines from the Near East.

Healthy Chef Partyologist Nancy Waldeck is a culinary educator and innovator. She teaches in a variety of corporate settings like Google, Norfolk Southern, Florida Blue, Calphalon and Piedmont Hospitals, plus a number of respected culinary schools like Atlanta's own Cooks Warehouse. A media veteran, several times a month she enjoys sharing creative tips and techniques about healthy cooking on NBC TV's Atlanta and Company show.  Nothing makes cookbook author Nancy happier than sharing the treasures of explorations with others, so she hosts carefully curated wine and culinary trips around the world for small groups of curious guests.

After almost 20 years in the corporate world, Crystal realized that what was once a weekend pursuit and avocation had become increasingly important to her - so she decided to take the leap and focus on her passion for baking and pastry. In 2013, she completed an intensive Pastry Arts Course at L'Ecole National Superieure de Patisserie near Lyons, France followed by an internship in a pastry shop in Paris. 

Nealey Dozier Thompson is the Public Class Coordinator for The Cook's Warehouse. Her career started in Los Angeles, first as a wedding planner to the stars until culinary school called her name. She has worked as a recipe developer and food writer for over a decade and as a full-time culinary instructor for five years. You can find her work published in Southern Living, O, the Oprah Magazine, and Redbook, in addition to The Kitchn and Cooking Channel.

 Chefs Nealey Thompson & Paul Zang