Besides the Golden Gate Bridge, the next most recognized name in San Francisco is...
Gary Danko of the restaurant GARY DANKO!
The latest gold rush to hit the sunny shores of California is a new wave of tourists, aficionados and devotees looking to become part of the latest travel trends, “culinary tourism”. These gastronomes live for “experience destinations” that provide them with unparalleled excellence when it comes to a new journey of culinary discovery devoted to exquisite wines and five star fine dining taste sensations. What greater venue could there be than California? Teeming with classical estate wineries, lush with local grown indigenous produce and proteins, basking in the sun drenched climate of this garden state. All was waiting for pioneering chefs de cuisine to convert this endless bounty into a virtual Garden of Eden for the new culinary tourists. Those aficionados who travel the world over to reward themselves with the most unique culinary experiences revel in the timely traditions of classical cooking techniques, attributing to the most unique spicing and menu creations, that utilize nothing but the finest local fresh organic ingredients. The current icon of this new segment of the hospitality industry is Chef Gary Danko, of the restaurant GARY DANKO. Gary Danko is widely recognized as one of America's most talented and respected chefs. His rewards and honors from the industry and his peers are too long to list and his accomplishments are the stuff of legends. Suffice it to say that Gary Danko has dedicated his life to two things – learning, honing and sharing his craft and creating new standards of excellence for the industry in every venture he pursues or dish that he creates. Danko combines classical training with focuses on French, Mediterranean and regional American cooking. He explores influential culinary traditions from around the world, adding seasonings and techniques drawn from Asia and India.
Danko's appreciation for cooking, architecture and restaurants were ingrained from his youth in upstate New York and have become the foundation upon which he has moulded the rest of his stellar career. The traditional cooking skills were learned at the Culinary Institute of America, but his own path to personal development and greatness was launched when he discovered Madeleine Kamman's “The Making of a Cook”. Her visionary approach to cooking techniques and the profession's creative side greatly impressed Danko. Kamman has featured regularly in Danko's career and meteoric rise to the top of the profession. It seems no surprise that Gary Danko has subsequently “given back” to the industry through his own teaching at a number of cooking schools and television programs dedicated to the new profound interest in cooking and eating excellence.
Once Danko burst upon the scene in California, the journey became a preordained pursuit of his lifelong goals of practicing his own craft in his own restaurant. Free to develop his style and reputation based on what he knew would satisfy his own standard of excellence and create a new niche within the emerging culinary tourism trend. The restaurant GARY DANKO became the focal point of the next evolution of Gary's career. All this honing of skills, natural creativity and innate love of food and cooking ensured that within months the restaurant was the “talk of the town” and garnered even more awards and recognition to add to Danko's already bulging trophy case. The heart of GARY DANKO the restaurant, is a Garland Master Series custom island suite, designed, created and custom built for the restaurant by the Garland Group, using the chef's personal specifications and the unique characteristics of the existing building footprint. The Garland Group has a long history of designing and manufacturing many of the most significant suites for a “who's who” of the major culinary destinations in North America and the world. The major consultants in North America have come to trust the Garland product as one that will combine the latest innovation and technology with functional modularity that makes the installation and design of the suite much simpler. In the case of the new kitchen for GARY DANKO, the design team and consultant was the well-known design and industry experts, Harrison, Koellner, LLC. Critically known and respected as innovators in the design element of the industry, they knew that an island suite was the solution to the unique mandate that they had with the remodel of the kitchen in the restaurant, GARY DANKO. The challenge was to make a radical new design that would delight the customer in terms of its capabilities, but be practical in terms of design and manufacturing capabilities in today's equipment environment. The answer lay in the custom design and manufacturing excellence of the Garland Group custom island suite department. The result of their thoughts and Garland's design and manufacturing expertise was a radical new style of island suite. The revolutionary new design all hinges around a redesign of the cook tops, so that they flue from the side, an innovation that enables access to the cook tops from both sides of the range. This new design has now expanded install possibilities, so that the range units can be mounted side by side, with the ovens facing in different directions. The unique feature that evolves from this new configuration is that the chefs have access to ovens on both sides and shared access to the cook tops. This translates into all the benefits of island suite cooking in a minimum amount of floor space. Another critical advantage that this design enables the chef to have a pass through warming cabinets with access from both sides of the island - a key feature when you are working in a busy kitchen where productivity and efficiency are at a premium. This innovative effort and joint development of concepts has clearly resulted in a major win for the customer who would like to have island suite cooking in a smaller location. It also emphasizes the benefits of the “Total Solution” mentality of the Garland Group and its network of strategic design and consulting partners. If you can dream it, we can build it! There is no doubt that Chef Gary Danko will rise to even greater heights in his culinary career of excellence. To help assure this success, the foundation in the future will be his customized Garland Master Series Island suite. | 
