Deborah Scott

Executive Chef
Island Prime/C Level, Kemo Sabe, Indigo Grill, and the new Chop Soo-ey food truck
San Diego, California
cohnrestaurants.com

Celebration Weekend
June 4-5, 2011
Safeway Outdoor Kitchen Stage

Chef Deborah Scott can create a delicious meal with just about any ingredient, and she’s got the gold medals from Baltimore International Culinary College’s Cooking Competition to prove it. A native of Virginia Beach, Virginia, Scott perfected her talent of pairing different flavors in the graduate studies program at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park. She gained hands-on experience at both the award-winning Clark Cookhouse and the White Horse Tavern in Newport, Rhode Island, and at the Monterey Plaza Hotel’s Delfino’s On The Bay.

In 1992, Scott branched out on her own with the acclaimed Mediterraneo in Alpine. She followed that in 1994 with San Diego’s first Indigo Grill, a restaurant for which she created the menu, ran both the front and back of the house, and developed everything from the logo to the decor. There, Scott caught the eye of talented restaurateurs David and Lesley Cohn. They channeled her flair for blending distinct cuisines into the immensely popular Pacific Rim–infused Kemo Sabe in Hillcrest. The same trio collaborated on bringing back the beloved Indigo Grill to Little Italy, and on renovating San Diego landmark Reuben’s Steakhouse to become Island Prime/C Level, a dual-concept seafood restaurant overlooking San Diego Bay, Downtown, and Coronado.

“I love to combine different textures on a plate and add an element of creativity to the composition,” says Scott. Her ability to execute such visions successfully has made her restaurants favorites of local voters and peers and earned Scott multiple Best Chef awards from San Diego Magazine and San Diego Reader, as well as an “America’s HOT Tables” nod from Condé Nast Traveler in 2006.

Scott is proud to represent the San Diego Convention and Visitors Bureau at Celebration Weekend.