Sweet Potato and Goat Cheese Gratin

A New Orleans native, chef David Kinch got his start as a 16-year-old cook at Commander's Palace in 1977. He graduated from Johnson & Wales Culinary Academy in Providence, and spent much of the next two decades racking up kitchen experience around the world. He staged in Europe—at L'Espérance in St-Père-en-Vézelay, France, and Akelarre in San Sebastián, Spain, among other places—and consulted on an American restaurant at the Hotel Clio Court in Fukuoka, Japan. After working in New York, Kinch decamped to the West Coast, eventually opening his flagship, Manresa, in 1992. David Kinch has forged a distinctive culinary career path leading to the opening of Manresa and putting him at the forefront of new contemporary California cuisine. Kinch's driving force for his daily work remains the satisfaction he gets from cooking. "Very simply, I love doing this," he says. "My great pleasure is people being incredibly happy with their experience at the restaurant." Kinch's culinary philosophy is fostered by the terroir, or the "sense of place" of the California Coast, and the kind of ingredient-driven cooking and modern technique he has studied around the world.