Culintro: Connecting San Francisco’s Culinary Community
The San Francisco restaurant community now has a tool to connect with others in the industry, search for jobs and plan events amongst themselves.
Culintro was founded by Stephanie Berghoff and Alina Munoz in 2009 and is based in New York City. Positioning itself as the “Mediabistro of the culinary world,” Berghoff said it is more than just chefs being able to search a job board.
“The Job Board is obviously a major selling point for our members. It gives them a place to search for open positions or for young chefs to find internships and develop contacts in the industry,” Berghoff said. “But Culintro also organizes events for chefs to get together and talk shop.” Berghoff said that because of the long hours chefs tend to put in, the meetings are usually late night affairs after service is complete. Think of it as a meeting of the minds for those in the industry.
Overall, Berghoff and Munoz said the mission of Culintro is to establish a source that will provide insights on major trends, access to business professionals and serve as a gateway to influence industry development.
Culintro’s recent launch in San Francisco follows on the success of the program in New York and Berghoff said it was an obvious market to expand to. “San Francisco and the Bay Area have such a close knit community of chefs that this was an obvious step,” she said. “We wan to make it easier for them to get together and share information, for young chefs to get to know older ones who have developed a solid reputation in the Bay Area. It’s great to be part of the process of further developing the culinary community in the area.” They hope to expand to Seattle and Chicago next, with offerings on the Job Board in other cities as well.
With a Board of Advisors that includes Michael Chiarello of Bottega, Patrick Yumul with the Mina Group and Eric Lilavois with the Thomas Keller Restaurant Group, expect big things from Culintro in the Bay Area in the coming year.
Photo Credit: Culintro
