Who

Burke is the chef behind the Upper East Side restaurants davidburke townhouse and Fishtail.

Backstory

Trained at the CIA, Jersey native Burke got his start with a series of bottom-of-the-ladder jobs in France and briefly apprenticed with famed French chef Michel Troisgros. Burke later returned to the U.S. and made his name working at Brooklyn's River Café, where he started as sous chef under Charlie Palmer in 1985. Following Palmer's departure in 1987, Burke became head chef before leaving five years later to helm the kitchen at Alan Stillman's Park Avenue Café. In 2003, Burke joined forces with Donatella Arpaia to open David Burke & Donatella. Generally regarded as one of the city's more inventive chefs—he's known for outside-the-box dishes like his pretzel-crusted crabcake—Burke was responsible for what happened in the kitchen at DB&D while Arpaia handled the front of the house up until 2008, when the two parted ways and Burke renamed the restaurant davidburke townhouse.

Of note

Burke has always been impossible to miss—he weighs close to 300 pounds—but ever since DB&D became a hit, he's been trying to make himself even more inescapable. In 2005 he opened both David Burke at Bloomingdale's and a Chicago steakhouse called David Burke's Primehouse with financing from Stephen Hanson. In early 2006, he purchased the Jersey restaurant Fromagerie—where he worked as a kid—and renamed it David Burke Fromagerie. In early 2007, he debuted David Burke Las Vegas at the Venetian Hotel. And in 2008, he opened Fishtail, a sustainable seafood restaurant on the Upper East Side. There's more, of course. Burke is executive chef at the Times Square boobfest otherwise known as Dennis Riese's Hawaiian Tropic Zone, and he markets a number of bizarre products, including "flavor sprays," pastrami salmon, pre-packaged marinades, and gourmet lollipops. Burke also says he's working on a magazine—it's called David Burke Magazine, naturally—although friends and associates say that Burke's hard-living ways have put the damper on several of his newest ventures.

In print

Burke's first cookbook, Cooking with David Burke, was published in 1995. His second, David Burke's New American Classics, was published in 2006.

Personal

The wide-waisted Burke is unmarried. He lives in Fort Lee, NJ.

True story

Burke made an unfortunate cameo on Kathy Griffin's My Life on the D-List in 2007. After he emerged from the kitchen to introduce himself to Griffin and her dining companion Joan Rivers, Griffin wondered aloud whether she should ask Burke out on a date. Rivers put her foot down, screaming that Burke—who was standing right next to them—was "too heavy."