Like most culinary luminaries, David Bouley knew from an early age that he wanted to be a chef. However, while his parents took their rather large family (Bouley is one of nine children) to dine at restaurants all over New York City, it was not this restaurant culture but the food he tasted on his grandparents' farm in Rhode Island that gave Bouley his earliest and fondest food memories. He still insists that he finds complicated food "unmemorable," and the simple, elegant, flavorful food at his eponymous Bouley embodies this culinary philosophy.

In his career as chef, the forty year-old Bouley has gained wide and diverse experience in some of the best kitchens of Europe and America. After his graduation from Cornell, Bouley went to France where he studied under renowned chefs Fredy Giradet, Paul Bocuse, and Joel Robuchon; with their tutelage, he learned that the simplest food is often the hardest to cook. Back in New York, he held positions at La Côte Basque, Le Périgord, Le Cirque, and Montrachet before opening Bouley in TriBeCa, which earned a number one rating for food, decor, and service in Zagat's 1995 survey, and a four-star rating in the New York Times. Chef David Bouley's other awards include a mention in People Magazine's 50 most beautiful people of 1994 as the "hazel eyed genius," the "most sensuous dish" at Bouley.

Bouley closed in 1996, but while it was open, the chef showcased his minimalist cooking, preparing dishes with only a dribble of cream and butter and using the freshest ingredients procured from local markets and greengrocers. Nearly forty percent of the patrons at Bouley chose not to order off of the menu but to instead allow the chef to prepare dishes according to his whim and to the special foods available that day. On a given night, these dishes might have included roasted skate with licorice sauce and accompaniments of celery root and wild mushroom ragout, or Maine lobster with baby pea leaves and fresh asparagus in an herbal broth. Bouley describes his cuisine as food that goes "straight to your body and to your soul."

With Bouley's huge success, the chef has ambitious plans for the future. He has joined with restauranteur Warner LeRoy to take over as chef of The Russian Tea Room, which is being rebuilt in 1997 with a more Russian cuisine and decor. David Bouley is also negotiating plans for his new "Bouley Complex." He intends for the complex to include a new version of the restaurant Bouley, a cafe, a professional cooking school, test kitchen, nutrition workshop, research center, wine cellar, retail store and mail-order company. While the restaurant will be tailor-made and ideally situated to train students from the cooking school, staff at the nutrition workshop and research center will work to encourage organic farming and to find ways of preserving the nutritional content of cooked foods. Bouley's planned institution seems designed to perpetuate his love of fresh, simple, healthy cooking, if in a rather complex way.