William Todd English (born August 29, 1960) is an American celebrity chef, restaurateur, author, and television personality, based in Boston, Massachusetts. He hosted the TV cooking show, Food Trip with Todd English, on PBS. In 2005 he was a judge on the PBS show Cooking Under Fire.
His life and career received a chapter in Super Chef by Juliette Rossant, who had written previously about English for the Forbes Celebrity 100 list.[1] Todd English also works as lead chef for Delta Air Lines (US).[2]
He worked under Jean-Jacques Rachou at New York's La Cote Basque,[4] and then moved to Italy to work at several restaurants there.[6] He returned to the United States at age 25 and served as the executive chef of the Italian restaurant Michela's in Cambridge, Massachusetts for three years before opening the original Olives restaurant in 1989.[4]
English has been married once to Olivia Disch English, his classmate at the Culinary Institute of America,[4] but they divorced; the couple has three children. He was engaged to Erica Wang in 2009, but the wedding was called off.[7][8][9][10]
English's first restaurant, Olives, opened in the Charlestown neighborhood of Boston in April 1989. The restaurant's name is a tribute to his then-wife, Olivia. The food is "rustic Mediterranean," with a strong influence from Italian cuisine. The restaurant was named Best New Restaurant by Boston magazine and has been honored as Best Food and Top Table by Gourmet magazine. Olives is known for two signature desserts – a molten chocolate cake and a vanilla beansoufflé – which must be ordered with the main meal. The Health Department has cited Olives for sanitation discrepancies and animal waste hazards.[11]
In October 1998, Olives opened in the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas; It closed in 2019.
In May 2010, Olives was closed due to damage done by a grease fire.[12] This was the third time the Charlestown eatery was closed due to fire damage since 2001.[12][13]
Figs is the name of two pizzerias in the Boston area, one in the Beacon Hill neighborhood and another in Charlestown. Figs offers authentic Neapolitan-style pizzas with very thin crusts, served on inverted sheet pans, as well as salads and pastas. Figs won the "Hot Concept" award from Nation's Restaurant News magazine.
English has authored or co-authored four cookbooks: The Olives Table, The Figs Table, The Olives Dessert Table, with Sally Sampson, and Cooking in Everyday English, published by Simon & Schuster and Time Home Entertainment Inc.
