Returning to his hometown of Chicago after a year at French Laundry in Napa Valley, 2011 Rising Star Pastry Chef Patrick Fahy is the latest addition to the Blackbird team. Growing up with kitchen-savvy parents on Chicago’s North Side, Fahy developed a passion for cooking from an early age. His first taste of the restaurant industry came as a teenager when he moved to Madison, Wisconsin, where he washed dishes and worked front of the house at J.T. Whitney’s, Smokey’s Steakhouse and, finally, the Admiralty Dining Room in the Edgewater Hotel.
By the age of 21, Fahy had moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, and saved enough money through catering work at Kelber and D’Amico to attend culinary school abroad. At the Apicius International School of Hospitality in Florence, Italy, he studied everything from pastry to savory and from wines to service language. But it was his first mentor Andrea Bianchini who took Fahy under his wing and instilled in him a passion for pastry. Fahy worked at winery restaurant Ristorante San Vito in Montelupo with Bianchini. After 14 months in Italy, Fahy returned and worked at several bakeries and Italian restaurants in both Madison and Chicago, including Griglia Tuscany restaurant and a bakery called La Brioche, both in the Madison area.
In Chicago, he acquired most of his baking experience at Lutz Cafe & Pastry Shop, where he baked cookies and assembled cakes for two years. He wanted more experience baking, but at a higher level, which led him to Bittersweet Pastry Shop. Soon Fahy moved to Chicago’s Ritz-Carlton, where he worked for two years, beginning with café desserts and eventually transitioning to banquet production and overnight bakery work. Meanwhile, Fahy decided to enroll at the French Pastry School in Chicago. While simultaneously working 50-plus hours per week, he completed the school’s 24-week program.
When the Ritz-Carlton Dining Room closed, Fahy worked at Thomas Keller’s famed French Laundry. His 13-month stay at French Laundry taught him the fundamentals of the kitchen: doing everything by hand, cleanliness, proper seasoning, utter precision and working as a team member. At Blackbird, Fahy credits Chef Paul Kahan and Chef de Cuisine Mike Sheerin for motivating and inspiring him.
