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At 35, Todd English already is intimate with the highs and lows of culinary stardom. A veteran of La Cote Basque in New York and the now-closed Michela's in Boston, he already was known when he and his wife, Olivia, opened their first Olives in 1989. Six years later patrons still flock nightly to the second, bigger Olives to taste his Pan-Mediterranean fare.
But celebrity has not always been kind to English. Just as readily as the press has praised his talent, it has cast him as a bad guy with an attitude. Now older and wiser, English concedes that the spotlight was at times blinding, but that years of soul searching have taught him to recognize his faults and to separate what is important from the props.
Still ambitious but more centered, English now finds joy in a growing family, a growing chain of the Englishes' more casual Figs concept and the knowledge that he loves what he does.
Title: Chef-owner, The Olive Group Management Co., Charlestown, Mass.
Birthdate: Aug. 29, 1960.
Hometown: Amarillo, Texas.
Formal education: The Culinary Institute of America, Hyde Park, N.Y.
Career highlights: Being named one of the To 10 Chefs by Food & Wine, 1990; being designated a James Beard Rising Star, 1991, and Best Chef -- Northeast, 1994; having a busy restaurant on a regular basis.
You wanted to play baseball in college. How did you go from baseball to cooking?
I was injured in baseball. I could have gone on, but I'd had a lot of surgery on my knees. I was also a confused college student. I took of one semester and that became two semesters, then three. I grew up in Atlanta and went back there and got...