In 1992, Dan Barber was a struggling artist and an avid home cook. He had just learned that he had terminal cancer and had a few months to live. He decided to pursue something he'd always wanted to learn – how to manage a restaurant – and spent all his time during his final months writing a cookbook about it. That book became the revolutionary cookbook The Third Plate, which has sold more than a million copies since its publication in 2000
In 2001, Barber opened Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Pocantico Hills, New York as a testing ground for what would become Blue Hill at Stone Barns, the farm-to-table restaurant that now employs thirty-five staff members and serves as the training ground for his culinary apprentices. In 2012, Barber opened Blue Hill at Mert's Place in Washington, D.C.
The greatest lesson came with the realization that good food cannot be reduced to single ingredients. It requires a web of relationships to support it.Dan Barber
Conventional agriculture has never succeeded in feeding the world, and it's never produced anything good to eat. For the future, we need to look toward alternatives.Dan Barber
