2018 On-Farm Dinners: Stephen Williams of Bouquet Restaurant and Wine Bar

We’re cooking up our first farm dinner of 2018 tomorrow night and we couldn’t be more excited to kick off the season with Bouquet Restaurant’s owner and executive chef Stephen Williams.

Bouquet Restaurant and Wine Bar is one of our favorite local restaurants, because not only is their food amazing, but chef Williams quite literally has every quality we love in a chef:

An impressive professional pedigree?
Training under Cincinnati legend Jean Robert while training at the Midwest Culinary Institute at Cincinnati State certainly qualifies. Check!

A proponent of buying produce from local farms?
Since Bouquet’s opening—going on 11 years ago—Williams has been dedicated to the farm-to-table movement, leading that effort in the local food scene. Check!

A leader in the local food community?
Chef Williams is currently the President of the local chapter of Chefs Collaborative—an organization which believes as one of its fundamental platforms that “food choices that emphasize delicious, locally grown, seasonally fresh, and whole or minimally processed ingredients are good for us, for local farming communities, and for the planet.” (from the Chefs Collaborative website)

Three local chefs we also love trained up under Williams at Bouquet. Danny Combs (Boca Restaurant Group), Kyle Roberts (The Mercer OTR), Bhumin Desai (Maplewood Kitchen). And Williams champions a scholarship program at the Midwest Culinary Institute.

So, check , check, and check!

And beyond all of that AND being one of our longest-lived customer/partners, chef Williams cooks ridiculously delicious and gorgeous food.

We’re proud to have Stephen Williams serve a meal to our guests on CHF’s garden terrace tomorrow night, and we’ll share pictures of the whole menu at the start of next week. . . just to make you jealous you weren’t there.