Daniel
Orr is the chef owner of FARMbloomington.
This establishment
is the result of his work around the world, from New York to France
to the Caribbean. To Orr, simplicity is beauty. As a chef, Orr draws
from a lifelong curiosity about individual ingredients combined with
extensive training in the art of finding food’s true essence
and flavor. The result is simple, yet sophisticated; the best of American
food tempered by classic European training. He calls his cuisine “real
food.” By
working in exotic places and traveling throughout the world, his "real
food" has a truly global accent.
Daniel spent his childhood in
Columbus, Indiana, where his parents were serious food lovers. They
grew apples, raspberries, black walnuts and wine grapes, and his mother
taught bread-making, cooking, and herb classes. When Daniel wasn’t
off catching crayfish and frogs, he was right there with his parents
in the kitchen. There is even a newspaper clipping of a grade school
Orr posing in front of his award-winning Spanish recipe at a junior
high cooking competition. So it wasn’t a surprise when
Orr decided to pursue a career in cooking.
His first summer job in the
town’s only fine dining restaurant
further fueled his interest and eventually led him to Johnson & Wales
University in Providence, Rhode Island. After graduating with a bachelor’s
degree in restaurant management, he headed abroad. Orr spent two years
working at some of the top restaurants in France, including Auberge
des Templiers, Restaurant Daguin, the three-star L’Espérance,
and the three-star Restaurant Bruneau in Belgium.
Upon returning home
in 1992, Orr settled in at New York’s famed
French restaurant, La Grenouille. There he moved up the ranks to executive
chef, and in 1997, at age 34, he earned a three-star review from the
New York Times. That same year, Orr published his first cookbook, Daniel
Orr: Real Food (Rizzoli); a collection of recipes for simple, quick,
everyday meals, as well as menus for sophisticated entertaining. He
also created Kitchen D’Orr, a line of ten spice blends perfected
in his own kitchen.
In 1999, Sir Terence Conran asked Orr to become
the executive chef of his first U.S. restaurant: Guastavino’s
in New York City. It was here that Orr was able to experiment and blend
all of his training to create menus that defined his signature style.
A lover of the sun, Daniel spent many vacations away from New York,
diving and exploring the Caribbean Islands. As fate would have it,
in 2004 he was invited to become the executive chef of the CuisinArt
Resort & Spa in Anguilla BWI. He
enlisted island native, Franklyn Brooks, to develop an organic vegetable
garden to supplement the pristine offerings from the resort’s
extraordinary hydroponic farm. Combining the island’s fresh organic
produce, poultry, fish and heritage meats with his culinary experience,
he created a healthy cuisine that was a perfect match for the beauty
of Anguilla beaches.
FARMbloomington is the first Orr-owned establishment.
Chef Daniel traveled to his home state of Indiana to open this
multi-faceted culinary complex, consisting of a restaurant, market, bar,
walk-up crepe window and music venue. The focus is on the local and
fresh ingredients Orr incorporates into his menu items. The fusion of
island cuisine and Midwest American cooking is the prime emphasis at
FARM. It is the culmination of his entire culinary career, from his
parents’ kitchen in Columbus to the CuisinArt Resort & Spa in Anguilla.
In the market section of FARM, Orr’s personal line of spice blends are
available, as well as all of the other Kitchen D’Orr products.
FARMbloomington celebrates the best of the heartland and Indiana.
Products and produce utilized in dynamic, innovative and flavorful
dishes translate into “real food for real people!”
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