At Capers Catering, we are always seeking new ways to elevate your fine dining experience. Though spectacular food created from premium ingredients is eternally in the spotlight, we design every supporting detail from flawless service to meticulous pairing of cocktails, mocktails, spirits, beer, and wine to enhance your enjoyment of each bite. Careful calculus combining food and drink has forever been a major focus of ours to maximize your experience—but since the arrival of our Beverage Director, Stuart Stein, we are taking that focus to a whole new level.
MEET STUART STEIN: THE SHORT STORY
A former Chef de Cuisine at numerous notable restaurants across the country who trained in France and the U.S. under legendary chefs including Paul Bocuse, Francis Garcia, and Jean Banchet, Stuart launched and operated two successful farm-to-table, fine-dining restaurants garnering national press (well ahead of the sustainability movement), served as an award-winning American Culinary Federation (ACF) Chef Educator in California, ran kitchen operations and selectively paired foods with alcohols as Corporate Executive Chef at Brown Forman—parent company of 18+ wine and spirit brands including Jack Daniels—earned ACF Executive Chef and Culinary Educator certifications, and achieved a Wine & Spirit Education Trust Wine Level 2 Award (sommelier education toward ever-greater wine excellence he plans to continue). …And that’s just the short story of his travels (for his fascinating, complete journey, be sure to stick around until the end).
Drawn to Capers Catering and Olive & Twist Mobile Bar by our commitment to sustainability, incorporation of premium-quality organic and local ingredients, and focus on serving impeccably prepared-and-presented fare to guests with discerning palates, Stuart was excited to join our team. We were equally as excited to welcome him—his unique combination of experiences are an ideal, globally, and holistically informed synthesis for the role of Beverage Director at Capers and Olive & Twist.
“Just as an incredible food experience should be about a subtle balance of flavors, so should an incredible food-and-drink experience,” said Stuart, and it starts with asking you a handful of questions. “As just one example, what’s the most forward flavor you would like? When it’s done right, the flavor profiles of each sip of wine, beer, spirits, cocktails, or mocktails will enhance and draw out the flavor profiles of specific ingredients in each dish—and vice versa.”
Stuart has much to share about the many ways in which this delicate balance can be achieved, and therefore gets involved in your menu-planning process and tasting as soon as possible to help tailor your event’s cocktail, spirit, wine, beer, and mocktail pairings to your specific, nuanced tastes in order to ultimately elevate the food-and-beverage experience for each of your guests.
Stuart can’t wait to meet you, we can’t wait for you to meet him, and to get you started, we invite you to read on for the full story of his culinary adventures—and to keep following our blog and social media for his continued tips to make the food and drink experience at your next event truly world-class.
MEET STUART STEIN: THE FULL STORY An exquisitely trained former Chef de Cuisine with multiple food and wine certifications, Stuart’s storied culinary career kicked off with a bang—training under some of the world’s most acclaimed chefs, which propelled him from Chicago to Paris, Atlanta, Washington D.C., Oregon, San Francisco, San Diego, Kentucky, and finally, his home in Boston today with Capers Catering and Olive & Twist Mobile Bar.
As a student, Stuart’s excellence at Kendall College’s culinary school earned him the coveted experience of studying in France with world-renowned chef Paul Bocuse—celebrated for leading his L’Auberge du Pont de Collonges restaurant in Paris to three Michelin stars for an unheard-of 50+ years, and the inspiration for Auguste Gusteau in Disney’s Ratatouille. Back on U.S. soil, Stuart trained under Chicago’s trailblazing celebrity chef Jean Banchet at his famed Le Francais—frequented by the likes of Oprah and named Best Restaurant in America by Bon Appetít in 1990. When Banchet left Chicago to open eateries in Atlanta, he asked Stuart to join, elevating him to Sous Chef and then Chef de Cuisine at his Ciboulette and Riviera restaurants respectively. Stuart subsequently served as Chef de Cuisine for Restaurateur Ashkok Bajaj at Washington D.C.’s Oval Room, whose location two blocks from the White House meant feeding a daily stream of clientele ranging from celebrities to U.S. Senators and other dignitaries.
Following a move to Oregon, Stuart successfully launched and ran Peerless, his own sustainable, fine dining restaurant—getting well ahead of the slow-food, farm-to-table movement in the process—as well as Terroir, a restaurant and wine bar named one of Food & Wine’s 100 Tastes to Try in 2008. Stuart then authored The Sustainable Kitchen: Passionate Cooking Inspired by Farms, Forests, and Oceans, taught at San Francisco’s California Culinary Academy and San Diego’s International Culinary School at the Art Institute of California, earned American Culinary Federation (ACF) Executive Chef and Culinary Educator Certifications, and was honored as ACF’s 2017 Western Region Chef Educator of the Year. Through it all, he was featured in myriad TV programs and magazines, including Gourmet and Food & Wine. A role he accepted as Corporate Executive Chef for Brown Forman—parent company of 18+ wine and spirit brands including Jack Daniels—in which he was tasked with overseeing culinary operations, creating dishes for events and carefully pairing food with alcohol—helped chart the course for his current career chapter as Capers’ and Olive & Twist’s Beverage Director.
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