Profiles

Michel Nischan

A son of displaced farmers, Michel Nischan grew up with a deep appreciation for sustainable agriculture and those who work the land. As a professional chef and advocate for a more healthful, organic and sustainable food future, he has built on those childhood values and become a catalyst for change and new initiatives in local and regional food systems.

A two time James Beard Foundation award winner, Michel is Chef/Owner of Dressing Room: A Homegrown Restaurant, located at Westport (CT) Country Playhouse, and President /CEO of Wholesome Wave Foundation, a non-profit organization focused on making locally and sustainably grown foods available to all.

Through Nell Newman, the driving force behind Newman’s Own Organics®, Michel met her father Paul, who planned to become involved in a restaurant. Paul and Michel found their beliefs on food, family and community to be remarkably aligned, and in 2006, Dressing Room was opened, as the place where their shared values could have a dynamic and engaging platform.

Wholesome Wave was created in 2007 with funding from Newman’s Own Foundation and the Betsy and Jesse Fink Foundation, and is now supported in part by funding from Grow for Good, a philanthropic initiative of FOOD & WINE Magazine. Wholesome Wave and Dressing Room work in tandem to create grassroots initiatives that celebrate local food systems and heritage recipes. “We were well loved for our home-fried chicken, apple pie and pot roast long before we became the land of fast food,” says Nischan. Wholesome Wave funds and manages two farmers markets and is working with low income communities to create greater access to local foods and also created and manages Green Wave Farm-to-College, a value-added local food initiative for college dining halls. Newman and Nischan appeared on ABC World News with Charles Gibson in November 2006 as Persons of the Week for their community outreach efforts, as well as ABC News Nightline on May 2007.

When his five year old son was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes in 1994, Michel was inspired to create a “cuisine of well-being”, focusing on pure, flavorful, local, organic food without highly processed ingredients. “Chris’s illness made me realize that floating on foie gras, bathing in cream, and dusting in processed flour might not be in my customers’ best interest”, Michel explains. He introduced his groundbreaking new cuisine at Heartbeat restaurant at the W Hotel in midtown Manhattan in 1997, and was immediately propelled to the forefront of New York’s culinary scene.

Michel puts his healthful and sustainable culinary focus into print as a contributing editor for Food Arts Magazine, where he was a Silver Spoon Award honoree in 2006, and in two well-received cookbooks, Homegrown Pure and Simple: Great Healthy Food from Garden to Table (Chronicle Books, 2005) and Taste Pure and Simple: Irresistible Recipes for Good Food and Good Health (Chronicle Books, 2003). Taste made the New York Times and Wall Street Journal’s best seller lists and won a 2004 James Beard Foundation Cookbook Award, given by industry peers and more than 600 culinary professionals.

Most recently, his appearances on PBS Victory Garden were honored a 2007 James Beard Foundation Best National/Local TV Food Segment.

He also serves on the boards of the Amazon Conservation Team and Harvard’s Center for Health and the Global Environment. Michel lives in Fairfield CT with his wife, Lori and their five children.

Posted November 20 2008

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