Our humble beginnings involve a small basement kitchen near New York’s Times Square. In that kitchen, our founder, Rebecca spent her nights teaching the fine people of Manhattan to stop using their ovens for sweater storage and to instead, use them to make delicious food. With a dream of bringing people together through food & drink, she started The Social Table in 2008 and quickly became one of the most popular culinary experiences in the city. In 2014, Rebecca moved from The Big Apple to The Windy City and she took The Social Table with her. The rest is history!
To us, there’s nothing better than a group of people sharing the experience of a meal – making it, eating it, talking about it and hazily remembering the good things about it the next morning. At The Social Table we get folks together in the kitchen to laugh, nosh, drink, chip in, chop, sauté, cook, drink, sneak a bite, plate, shove their faces, drink a little more, and find a way to make room for dessert. We can’t wait to see your face at the table soon.
The Big Cheese. Generally fond of making noises to express thoughts and emotional states. Cannot live without a pork product or red meat at any given meal. Knows a thing or two about art history, dancing, wine, cooking, & world-travel. Loves bad pop music, owns vinyl records, & tortures the rest of the staff with her country music playlists. It’s only fair, she owns this joint.
Doer of things, organizer of chaos, general reason things get done around here. Has mild hipster tendencies, has a love affair with cheese-fries, insists on making her own masa tortillas, and is learning to play the Irish fiddle & drum. This one can be found riding around with her husband and baby on the family’s tandem bicycle, losing sleep over unfinished crossword puzzles, & wearing the ever-awesome combo: Baby Bjorn + teal Crocs.
Longtime professional chef & culinary teacher, menu guru, and knife-skills ninja! Mike believes that with a sharp Japanese knife and a Vita Prep blender you can near conquer the world! (But he would never do that….) He moonlights at the ice hockey rink and collects rare whiskey. He’s a Star Wars nerd, bass & drums player, great hugger, and lover of classic rock. Could subsist on sushi, ramen, foie gras, and coffee alone. May actually have coffee running through his veins instead of blood – we’re still not sure.
The only chef (that we know) who teaches cooking classes with epic movie theme music playing in the background. (“Um, is this the Forrest Gump medley, Dom?”) Loves food, loves teaching. He’s a big fan of Italian & Latin cuisine but he’s always on the hunt for new culinary challenges including cheese-making! His top 3 favorite foods are pizza, pizza, and pizza. When he’s not in the kitchen, Dom can be found playing piano, drawing, listening to jazz, and hanging out with his one-eyed axolotl, Patchy.
As a kid, she narrated her own “cooking shows” at home in Franklin, MI. Several detours later, Chef Sarah found herself at culinary school in Ireland learning how to fillet fish, cut lamb forequarters, and make cheese. Thankfully, a bit further down the path, she landed at our kitchen door. As a chef, she is inspired by la cucina povera (Italian peasant cuisine) and marries her passion for old school technique, kitchen resourcefulness, and classic Italian ingredients to teach and create beautiful meals. Her dream food destination is Taormina, Sicilia. She’s a pasta expert, avid biker, and champion of the humble, scrap-saving spatula. If Sarah’s not at the kitchen, you’ll probably find her enjoying a great meal at home, doing freelance advertising work, or writing about food. You may also recognize her as one of the members of the Matafame trio–the Italy-inspired pop-up dinner sensation taking over the northside of Chicago.
Stephanie–better known to her junior chef pupils as Chefanie–is both a regular TST instructor and the fearless leader of our kids’ events! A once very picky eater, Chefanie spends her time outside of our kitchen…in other peoples’ kitchens! She is a personal chef, she teaches in-home family cooking classes, and she spends ample time sampling the tasty treats of her friends. (Did anyone ever tell you that chefs make great friends?) Stephanie draws inspiration from the foods of her childhood – like pierogis and Swedish meatballs – when planning more health-conscious-meets-comforting meals for her clients and herself. You’ll be sure to find pomegranate molasses, kimchi, and eggs at Chez Stephanie, as well as two cats named Teddy and Cosmo. She loves her 90s hip-hop, is quick to the draw (with bench scrapers, that is!!), she has a VERY cool apron decorated with tiny Pikachus. If you asked her what her last meal on Earth would be, she might just tell you a liverwurst sandwich with Swiss cheese, pickles, and mustard. (You do you?)
A Midwesterner with a penchant for fresh veggies and fine wine, Emily brings to the table experience in farm-to-table Italian cooking and organic meal delivery production. She swears by the power of a splash of lemon to make any dish pop, and recently has been known to dabble with her favorite new appliance – the tortilla press! Be sure to pick Emily’s brain for tips on vegetarian and vegan cooking, or to chat her up about her travels to 30 (!) countries over the years.
