Profile - Corporate Chef Robert Stegall-Smith

Attending Citrus Célébré inspired Corporate Chef Robert Stegall-Smith to take a new look at citrus. "It was the first time I experienced Meyer lemons and certain types of oranges," he says. "If you take the time to taste all the types of citrus and all of their parts -- the zest, the oil from the skin and the fruit inside -- you will discover some great flavors."

You will also be inspired to develop some rather unusual recipes, as Stegall-Smith found out. His Citrus Sushi incorporates pieces of raw fruit on balls of sticky rice cooked in vanilla syrup. This version of sushi is dipped in chocolate instead of soy sauce.

Another favorite newly developed citrus recipe is mussels in Meyer lemon butter sauce, which he has been sharing with chefs across the south. At Citrus Célébré, he also enjoyed exploring citrus varieties to see what mixes and matches best and learned to incorporate things like candied citrus peel into dishes to create interesting textures.

Based in Florence, South Carolina, Stegall-Smith works as one of two corporate chefs for Institution Food House (IFH), a foodservice distributor with over 6,000 customers, including fine dining, casual and quick serve restaurants; school systems; and health care providers in the Carolinas, Virginia and Georgia.

Much of Robert's time is spent on the road, but that will change next year, when IFH completes its new warehouse. The warehouse will incorporate a test kitchen that opens out to an auditorium. He will use it for both testing and teaching. “The company has never had a test kitchen in Florence,” Stegall-Smith says. When the new test kitchen goes into operation, some of the company's customers will come to Florence for training.

Although happy to spend more time closer to home and his family, Robert will still travel around the south, where he gets new culinary insight. "I get so many ideas from my customers. I get to go into a lot of kitchens and see what people are doing. I have also lived in New Orleans, North and South Carolina and Virginia, and my cooking style has become very southern," he adds.

It's been quite a journey for a boy from the Bronx, who began washing pots and pans in a bakery at age 16, advancing to production work on the weekends. At Ithaca College, his baking skills landed him a job in the private faculty club where the chef took him under his wing. Although he graduated with a degree in English literature, it was his non-academic college experience that helped create a career path, and two years after graduating, Robert returned to the Culinary Institute of America for professional training. He has worked for the school and university division of Marriott; as executive chef of the 1763 Inn in Virginia; and as a chef at a hospital in South Carolina, before coming to IFH ten years ago.