Chandon Clenard, Senior Executive Chef of Performance Dining

With a penchant for athletics and having studied biology, Chandon originally aimed to be a physician. While working in a health food restaurant he discovered a newfound passion for foodservice, and since then he has applied the concept of food as medicine in his menus.

Not long after cutting his teeth as a prep cook, Chandon’s deep dive into the culinary world continued at Wolfgang Puck’s Spago in Palo Alto. He struck out on his own as Executive Chef/Owner of Edge Catering and Sports Nutrition, providing elaborate performance meals for professional athletes and evolving the company to become one of the San Francisco Bay Area’s most sought-after, high-end caterers. Following the sale of his company, he served as Executive Chef for the Kimpton Group’s Blue Mermaid, where he led the restaurant to win the “Schweppes Great Chowder Cook-Off” in Newport Rhode Island, and competed on The Food Network with his Dungeness Crab and Corn Chowder recipe. His expertise and keen palate caught the eye of Susan Feniger, who recruited him to serve as Executive Chef of Border Grill at the flagship restaurant in Santa Monica, California.

Today as the Senior Executive Chef of Performance Dining, Chandon keeps busy with leading the R&DE Stanford Dining test kitchen in creating new cutting-edge menus, developing performance and training dining programs, providing culinary instruction for staff and students, and serving food that is delicious, healthy, and sustainable. As part of his commitment to building menus around fresh, seasonal produce, Chandon is the recipient of the 2014 United Fresh Produce Excellence in Foodservice Award for Colleges & Universities.

Recently, Chandon was certified in the Jamie Oliver Food Foundation cooking curriculum, and through Jamie Oliver's Cook Smart Program at the Teaching Kitchen @ Stanford, uses Jamie’s hands-on curriculum to teach students the fundamentals of cooking delicious meals while understanding how to eat healthier and build confidence in cooking for themselves and others.