Patrick Clark

Patrick Dean Clark was born on March 17, 1955, in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Melvin Clark, a Black-American chef who cooked in the kitchens of Restaurant Associates in Manhattan — among them the Four Seasons and the Forum of the Twelve Caesars — and Idella, whose home kitchen filled with the scents of seasoned fried chicken and other down-home cooking. From his father's professional world and his mother's table, the boy inherited both discipline and soul.

Clark trained in Britain and France, studying under the celebrated three-star chef Michel Guérard, then carried that classical grounding back to New York. He made his name as executive chef of the Odeon in the 1980s, opened his own restaurant, Metro, on the Upper East Side, and later cooked at Bice in Beverly Hills before taking the kitchen of the Hay-Adams Hotel in Washington, D.C.

In 1994 he was honored with the James Beard Foundation award for Best Chef, Mid-Atlantic Region — a mark of the highest respect from his peers. In 1995 he returned home to New York to become executive chef of Tavern on the Green, the landmark restaurant in Central Park, one of the most prominent kitchens in the nation. He competed on the television program Iron Chef in 1997, his artistry reaching a wide audience.

Patrick Clark died on February 11, 1998, at Princeton Medical Center in New Jersey, at the age of forty-two, of amyloidosis, survived by his wife Lynette and their five children. He remains among the most respected African-American chefs of the twentieth century, a master who cooked with mastery and dignity and opened the door for those who came after. May his name be honored, and his table remembered.