Matthew Hirt

Michelin Trained Private Chef

Matt was born and raised in Buffalo, New York. His passion for a culinary career began at age sixteen when he began his first food service position.

Upon completion of culinary school in 2016, he accepted a position at Michelin star-rated restaurant SPQR in San Francisco. After a year on the west coast, Matt sought out his next culinary endeavor.

In 2018, Matt worked as a Sous Chef in Buffalo, New York at the restaurant Prescott’s Provisions. Helping earn the restaurant Buffalo Spree’s ‘Best New Restaurant 2019’ award.

Having always felt the best way to learn is to study from those who do it best, in 2019 Matt chose to relocate to the culinary capital of the world, New York City.  

Matt spent one year under the tutelage of 3 Michelin Star chef Daniel Humm, at former ‘Worlds Best Restaurant’ Eleven Madison Park.

With the restaurant industry pause throughout most of 2020, Matt decided to refocus his culinary career. He found an outlet for his food knowledge through virtual cooking, private chef events, and food media. Matt has transitioned his creativity by cooking private dinners and hosting virtual cooking events throughout the past year.

Through his food Matt aims to always cook with the seasons. He incorporates fresh and bright ingredients to help highlight any seasonal produce in your kitchen.

WORDS TO COOK BY

I feel as long as you’re cooking with the seasons, you’re on the right path to creating tasty meals.

By using fresh produce and proper technique, anybody can create memorable, seasonal cuisine.

Within my collection of recipes, I wanted to focus these recipes towards the home cook. You’ll find most of the quantities listed within the recipes are easily scalable to multiply your yield.

I urge you to showcase these recipes next time you have a friend or family member over for dinner.

A majority of these recipes aren’t drawn out, extravagant recipes you’d find in an Alinea cookbook… These recipes are approachable, flavorful, and focused. I don’t like to crowd dishes with a ton of different flavor profiles. Whenever I develop recipes or dishes, I prefer to choose a few select, high quality ingredients, and let them shine.

Lastly, don’t get up hung up on any one ingredient.

If you see a recipe that calls for walnuts, but you only have pecans at home…use pecans!

I feel a lot of home cooks will stray away from a recipe when they have 95% of the ingredients, except that one ingredient.

One of the most exciting things about cooking is this flexibility with ingredients.

Sometimes you’ll swap an ingredient within a recipe and end up loving the new version more.

Don’t be afraid to customize any recipe towards your taste or what you have on hand.

-MH