Chef Walter Scheib

“For the last eleven years, I have had the honor of doing on a daily basis what most chefs would be lucky to do once in their lifetime. That honor was serving the First Family of the United States.”

—Walter Scheib, March 2005

Walter Scheib has quite a story to tell. In fact, he has two stories to tell. The first involves the rise of an American chef to the most storied position in the land. The second offers an intimate, human view of two First Families, the corridors of political power, international personalities, and the most famous building in the United States, all from a unique vantage point: the kitchen.

Food has been Scheib’s lifelong passion. He discovered his mother’s pots and pans early in life and soon felt comfortable preparing meals for parents and friends. By the time he graduated from high school, he was eager to pursue a profession in the culinary arts. He attended the Culinary Institute of America, from which he graduated with high honors in 1979. Immediately thereafter, Scheib started as a Rounds Cook at a premier Washington, D.C. hotel, and within three years was promoted to Executive Chef. He then served as Executive Chef at other major hotels and resorts, including the Boca Raton (Fla.) Resort and Club, before becoming Executive Chef at the famed Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, W. Va.

Scheib’s direction of the Greenbrier’s culinary team and overall highlighting of American cuisine as the resort’s Executive Chef made him a leading candidate when the White House chef position became open shortly into the Clinton Administration’s first term. In April 1994, after a lengthy application and screening process, Scheib was named the new chef to America’s Chief Executive and First Family. First Lady Hillary Clinton, who personally hired Scheib to come to the White House, was particularly impressed by the comprehensive spa menu he had developed for the Greenbrier.

In the following 11 years, Schieb prepared everything from simple family meals to elaborate and formal state dinners. His culinary creations dazzled and delighted White House guests, including Nelson Mandela, Emperor Aikihito, Jacques Chirac, Boris Yeltsin, Vaclav Havel, Lady Diana Spencer, Tony Blair, Vicente Fox, and others, not to mention the thousands of Congressional members, journalists, and other White House visitors who got to know his food.

A highlight of Scheib’s White House achievement was his creation of a distinctly American repertoire for the nation’s First House. He continues to speak with eloquence and pride about America’s bounty today, praising the artisan cheese makers, green grocers, mushroom foragers, master bread makers, fishermen, ranchers, and farmers who have helped our national market basket to evolve and have made quality cooking more accessible than ever.

“America is rich in amazing produce, meats, and fish,” Scheib says. “Using just a few excellent ingredients, anyone can make a perfect meal, with very little formal training.”

Upon returning to private life, Scheib co-authored the book White House Chef: Eleven Years, Two Presidents, One Kitchen, which was released in January 2007. He also founded The American Chef™, to be a company through which he could share his knowledge of the development of American cuisine at the White House, as well as White House remembrances, with audiences across the country.

The special events now offered through The American Chef often aim to bring together business leaders, using group cooking as a method of team bonding. They also offer home entertainers and party planners unique approaches to special events. For cooking schools, cooking demonstrations and lectures, Scheib teaches classes ranging from “State Dinner Secrets” to “Throwing a White House Birthday Party.” The American Chef also offers a multitude of special-event concepts, such as White House-style cocktail receptions, First Lady Luncheons, State Dinners, and Outdoor “South Lawn” barbecues and picnics.

The American Chef has become a great success. Scheib’s educational and entertaining sessions and demonstrations are filled with a fascinating White House insider’s perspective, culinary insights, and thoughts on team building and bonding, as well as exercises with a culinary twist. Sessions frequently feature hands-on cooking demonstrations with audience participation and interaction. Scheib has developed a very popular speaking approach, regaling guests with interesting, informative and often humorous anecdotes from his years in the White House.

Throughout his career, Scheib has made numerous television appearances, both national and local. On the CBS Early Show, he demonstrated how to make a “presidential burger”…on the Fourth of July, no less. Additional television appearances include The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Good Morning America, Weekend Today, Nightline and Iron Chef on the Food Network Station, where he defeated Cat Cora. Newspaper and magazine stories and interviews about his company and his food have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Philadelphia Inquirer, U.S. News and World Report and other publications (all of the articles can be read at www.theamericanchef.com).

An avid fisherman, Scheib still enjoys cooking as much as he did as a child and at the White House. He currently lives in Great Falls, Va., with his wife, Jean, and their two sons, Walter and Jim.