Matthew Chasseur Out as Alinea Chef de Cuisine

A change has been made in the Alinea kitchen. Longtime Chef de Cuisine Matthew Chasseur worked final day this past Monday, replaced by promoted sous chef Mike Bagale.

Chasseur, who spent six years at Alinea, says he has "chosen to take the next step in my life. Settling down on the east coast and starting a family." He said in a 2009 CS story that he planned to open a restaurant in Boston. He declined to elaborate more on his professional plans this time around.

Alinea partner Nick Kokonas wrote in to say that "Chef Chasseur is an amazing chef in both the execution of the dishes and as a creative collaborator. He very successfully ran the Alinea kitchen as our Chef de Cuisine for the last several years. He left for personal reasons, not professional ones."

"Chef Bagale has been the top sous chef under chef Achatz and chef Chasseur and his promotion to Chef de Cuisine has been known to our staff for several months. He is a passionate, talented and creative chef who has thrived and grown within the Alinea family. The Alinea 'bench' is deep and while every chef brings a bit of their own personal style to the table, we expect that Alinea will keep pushing forward under chef Achatz' direction.

As well, we recently extended our 10 year lease, coming due in 2014, for another 10 years. We expect that we will continually challenge ourselves to re-imagine the fine dining experience.... and even we don't usually know quite what that will mean 1 or 2 years out."
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