Chef Thomas - Personal Chef Service

Chef Thomas Carrig, DTR CSW

Owner/Chef of Chef Thomas LLC

A business entity that is fully licensed and insured to do business in Mecklenberg County - unlike many other personal chefs

Chef Thomas is a personable, mature and discreet person.  Many chefs will spin yarns about how they learned to cook from spending time with grandma when they were children, but Chef Thomas learned to cook out of necessity.  His mother, an excellent cook, joined the work force working evenings when he was in his early teens. A serious fan of food and eating, the shift of dinner preparation to his father, a great guy but not such a good cook, was tough for the future chef to handle. He came to the grim reality that if he wanted to eat food like his mom made, he was going to have to make it himself, and thus he began to cook.  He has not been a professional chef his entire life - originally a chemist, he made a career change after about 20 years as a very successful research and development professional in the polymer adhesives industry. It may sound sappy, but accumulating wealth and the finer things in life were not bringing the life satisfaction expected from such trappings.  Throughout his life, he always held food, wine and cooking as a high priority in his life, reading books and working in his kitchen during his free time. After talking a great deal with friends and family, Thomas decided to go back to college a second time and enrolled in the inaugural class of Johnson & Wales University's Charlotte campus to professionally pursue his passion for food and wine. He earned an AAS in Culinary Arts at the top of his class with a perfect grade point average. His desire to merge his love of science with his passion for food and cooking led him to continue his education and he earned a BS in Culinary Nutrition, again graduating at the top of his class. A term abroad brought Thomas to Europe for a summer for the sole purpose of studying wine at the prestigious German Wine School in Koblenz. Rigorous classroom instruction augmented by travel throughout the continent to visit vineyards and see how various wines are made prepared him to pass a 4 hour exam that included blind tasting. Chef Thomas scored the highest grade on the exam in over three years and earned the rare "Grand Distinction" status with his certification.

While in school, Thomas worked part time for catering outfits and restaurants learning the trade from great teachers and under pressure to perform. He also started dabbling with some personal chef work on the side, cultivating the concept which has evolved into Chef Thomas LLC.  While he saw that working as a personal chef was a viable means to provide a good service and make a living, he also realized that to fulfill his vision of what a great personal chef service could be, he needed to gain some serious experience - and credentials.

Thomas took the position of Sous Chef at the world famous Duke University Diet & Fitness Center in Durham, NC. In this role, he learned to manage a high volume commercial kitchen serving a client base with serious medical needs in addition to high quality expectations. All foods were made from scratch using as much locally sourced, sustainably raised foods as possible. In addition to traditional Sous Chef duties, developing new recipes, balancing menus for nutrition and bolstering offerings for vegans and vegetarians were also the responsibility of Thomas, often by working closely with the center's Registered Dietitians and doctors. Chef Thomas also developed and delivered wildly popular weekly cooking demonstrations as well as taught smaller hands on cooking classes for clients. To kick back and relax on weekends, Thomas did cooking demonstrations for patrons of the Durham Farmers Market as their "Chef In The Market", showing people how to use the foods that were in season and at the height of flavor. 

The opportunity to work as Executive Chef for a very exclusive wellness center (aka celebrity rehab) brought Thomas to the Outer Banks where he overhauled the food service program from the ground up into a model program. Most of the food was sourced from small, local farms and weekly menus were developed to allow for customization to meet the nutritional needs of each client and facilitate their wellness goals. As part of a multi-disciplinary therapeutic approach to wellness, he worked with the staff's physicians, nurses, counselors, and personal trainer to insure that the diet and nutrition for clients was supporting the overall vision of the center. Chef Thomas also developed and delivered a 12 unit ciriculum for a weekly nutrition class which covered basic concepts that allowed clients to take control of their own diets once they left the center.

Between, and during those experiences, Thomas continued to work as a personal chef and private chef for very select clients.  He worked exclusively for a very prominent family that required serious changes to their diets due to changing medical circumstances. Thomas revamped many of the family favorite recipes to lower sodium, fat, cholesterol and other ingredients that were highly processed while maintaining the powerful flavors they were used to. He also introduced them to new cuisines and healthy cooking methods such as poaching. He was also contracted by a prominent sports dietitian and a sports agent to feed college athletes in North Carolina to increase their chances to turn pro. Weight gain, weight loss, eliminating processed foods in the diet were some of the challenges successfully met. Feeding an offensive lineman 7,000 calories a day in a way that tastes great and doesn't weigh the athlete down is no small feat!!

Chef Thomas now brings this diverse experience to Charlotte to provide food and wine services for those with demanding tastes and high expectations.  

Some of my credentials earned along the way -

• AAS Culinary Arts
• BS Culinary Nutrition
• Dietetic Technician, Registered by the Commision on Dietetic Registration
• Certified Specialist of Wine by the Society of Wine Educators
• Certified Barbecue Judge by the Kansas City Barbecue Society
• Winner march 2008 Vegetarian Times Chef Challenge (see below for more details)
• Member American Personal and Private Chefs Association; American Dietetic Association; American Culinary Federation; Research Chefs Association; Society of Wine Educators; Kansas City Barbecue Society; SlowFood USA
• Two time judge at the Jack Daniel's Invitational World Barbecue Championships
• Published freelance food and wine writer
• ServSafe certified in safe food handling

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Chef Thomas wins Vegetarian Times Chef Challenge 

Chef Thomas' original recipe for the customer favorite "Vegetables Wellington" was submitted to Vegetarian Times magazine's annual Chef's Challenge and after exhaustive testing was declared the winner in the Entree category.  The March 2008 issue of the magazine features the dish on the cover and the editorial on page 4 provides some context to the honor of winning:

"As editor in chief of Vegetarian Times, I get invited to my fair share of benefit dinners. At these events, the menus are usually vegetarian.  They also tend to be a lot tastier than the 'rubber chicken' banquets of my omnivorous past."

"Why is this so? Caterers know they have to satisfy epicurian vegetarians and meat eaters alike. And the meat eaters might very well be eyeing a veg menu with the same doubt and suspicion I used to reserve for rubber chicken.  In these scenarios--where the pressure to please is on--the main course is often a beautiful plate of Vegetables Wellington.  It's a meatless twist on a British classic, and a vast improvement over the beef and foie gras laden original."

"Want to try it yourself?  Simply turn to page 72 where you'll find the recipe for perhaps the best Vegetables Wellington I've ever tasted.  Created by Thomas Carrig, it is one of the winning dishes in VT's Chef's Challenge 2008 recipe contest.  Carrig's version not only dazzled our taste buds, it looked so good that it made this month's cover."