Vincent Peterson

The flavors were South Indian and the dosas were irresistible at the Creative Vegetarian Cafe - an Indian-owned restaurant in Boulder, Colorado,

Their food was so sublime that I applied for a cooking position. My experience was only visceral at that time.

My grandmother was the personal chef to a doctor’s family in Trenton, and my sister Peg was the chef/owner of The Cafe at Rosemont in New Jersey, where I worked through high school – mostly washing dishes.

At twenty-six I enrolled at the Italian Culinary Institute for Foreigners and completed their Masters program after serving as an apprentice at Ristorante La Corte, in Lurago d’Erba, Italy in 1998.

I then moved from Italy to San Francisco where I joined the world-renowned vegetarian eatery, Millennium Restaurant, and served as Lead Line Cook (1999 and 2000) and then Sous Chef (2003 and 2004) for Chef Eric Tucker.

During my break from Millennium I spent a year as Dinner Chef at Headlands Center for the Arts (2001) in Sausalito, California and then spent 2002 traveling throughout Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos learning everything I could about South East Asian cuisine.

I returned to the U.S. at the end of that year and was invited to join Millennium’s team a second time. The opening of their new location in the Union Square district required an expanded concept and Eric and I collaborated on every aspect of running his kitchen.

In 2003 I met another Eric, Eric Fenster, and his partner, Ari Derfel, who were busy creating Back to Earth Organic Catering and now also own and operate Gather, the hottest restaurant in Berkeley, California.

Bidding farewell to restaurants for awhile, I served as Executive Chef and Chef de Cuisine for their catering company from 2003 to 2006 (prior to the opening of Gather) and guided their kitchen from 86K to 1.3 million dollars in yearly business – all organic.

By 2005, I really missed restaurants, so I started Kindle Cafe – a monthly Supper Club in Downtown San Francisco.

The name Kindle Cafe comes from the ancient Indian science of well-being, called Ayurveda. In Ayurveda, your health depends largely on your Agni, or “fire”. To process food properly, we must have a good fires going in our bodies.

This is the mission of Kindle Cafe – to kindle good fires.

A sister science of Ayurveda is Yoga, which is also an important part of my life. My practice began in 1998 with Ester Myers’ book, Yoga and You. I then certified to teach Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga at It’s Yoga of San Francisco in 2003 and the dynamic hybrid practice, Acroyoga in 2008. Additional study includes multiple, ten-day Vipassana meditation seminars with teacher S.N. Goenka and Kriya Yoga with Maharishi Arvind at his ashrams in Maharastra, India.

With deep gratitude to all of my teachers, especially my parents, I offer Kindle Cafe.