Todd Allison didn’t start out wanting to be a chef. He actually wanted to be a race car driver and had his future road to success all laid out for him.“It was set in stone that I was going to go to a racing school,” Allison said. “That’s where my passions were, but a certain series of events landed me back in San Diego and, to earn money, I went back to what I was comfortable in and that was back in the kitchen.” It’s a place he’s always been comfortable ever since he asked his mom, “What’s for dinner?” and she replied, “I don’t know, Todd. What’s for dinner?” and let him learn through trial and error.
From that fateful moment, Allison, a native of Coronado, moved on to professional restaurants, where he worked while in high school trying to earn money for surf trips with his friends. He started out as dish washer before working his way up through the ranks to be sous chef. Still, Allison never thought about cooking as a career until a good friend, Ken Irvine suggested he go to culinary school.
Irvine introduced Allison to James Boyce, a top chef at Mary Elaine’s at The Phoenician Resort and Spa, a highly regarded restaurant in Arizona, who became like a second father. “He changed my whole world view on what being a chef is all about,” Allison said. “It’s more than writing a menu. You have to mentor. You have to coach. You have to go out into the dining room and mingle. You have to make a connection with your customers or they’re not going to come back.
Read the entire Anthology blog post here.
