Chef Carlos Asseph
Chef At Home in Worcester
Get to know me better
I want to be Leonardo Da Vinci in the kitchen and have food be my next great work of art.
Chef Carlos
The Game of Chef
My favorite chef is Leonardo da Vinci.
He understood the kitchen as a dynamic process. He believed in invention, in movement, in incorporating machines. His favorite thinker was Archimedes, who shouted “Eureka!” in a moment of discovery.
I have never tasted Leonardo’s food. But being a chef is about more than what happens in your mouth at the moment you eat.
It is a way of being in the kitchen.
Biography
I started cooking very young. My grandmother was a Grand Chef in Argentina. She opened and managed two impressive restaurants. She mastered the mother sauces and knew the secrets of French, Italian, and Spanish cuisine.
She taught me the most important lesson:
A chef must be confident that the floor is so clean he could dine on it.
Food is culture.
You cannot become a grand chef without traveling.
I have learned about food by traveling across South, Central, and North America.
Potatoes and corn come from the Andes. They have been cooked into stews with wooden spoons for over ten thousand years. Quinoa. Cacao.
There are a hundred recipes with potatoes.
A hundred recipes with quinoa.
But with ceviche, Peru reached glory. Nothing creates “la explosión” like ceviche.
Later, French cuisine—after discovering potatoes and tomatoes—organized itself into five mother sauces. Four remain foundational in most Western kitchens today. The French sought elegance. They wanted to elevate dining, to move beyond excess and barbarism.
Cuisine became civilization.
A long time has passed since then. Today, the resources available to chefs are unimaginable. But with abundance comes responsibility.
I remember walking through the indigenous market of Oaxaca when an elderly woman handed me a Coca-Cola bottle filled with a dense, light brown oil.
“Esto es para usted,” she said.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I pressed it with my hands. Put it on everything,” she replied.
“On me?” I asked.
She laughed. “Yes.”
That night, after cooking shrimp caught that morning, I oiled my skin and swam in the waters of Carrizalillo. It was one of the most beautiful moments of my life.
Since then, I transformed my practice. I replaced milk with coconut. I stopped using butter, heavy cream, excess salt, and processed ingredients. Nothing that harms the body or saddens the spirit.
My food became cleaner. Lighter. Faster. More precise.
And the explosion of flavor became more honest.
Philosophy
If the house is the center of human identity, then the kitchen is its epicenter.
In Catamarca, at 6,000 meters in the Andes, a 103-year-old woman cooked lamb over wood fire with no salt. It was divine. That night, sleeping under the Milky Way, I understood something essential:
Food is story.
Food is memory.
Food is home.
When I cook, my grandmother cooks with me.
Education
Film Editor (35mm), ENERC – Argentina, 2001
Art History, University of Buenos Aires
Visual Arts, Institute of Visual Arts of Buenos Aires
Archeology, University of Catamarca
Professional Journey
My path has not been linear. Like Leonardo, I have worked in many disciplines:
• Server at Casa Bonita (Denver) – learned large-scale food production
• Crepe Maker in Buenos Aires – learned finesse and plate discipline
• Film Producer and Director – managed teams, budgets, logistics, and creative vision
• Cooked private banquets in Argentina – 100+ guest weddings
• Cook at India Restaurant (Providence) – discipline, cumin, cauliflower
• Cooked across Mexico – octopus, mole, coconut milk, clean flavors
• Chef at Delmonico’s (NYC) – banquet execution for 100 covers daily
• Executive Chef in Brooklyn – rebuilt kitchen operations from chaos
• Saute Chef in Narragansett – refined technique
• Currently cooking for Brown University Faculty and consulting restaurants
Each kitchen taught me something.
Mass production. Knife sharpening. Blanching fries. Beurre blanc. Fry station discipline. Leadership under pressure.
But what I seek now is not intensity for its own sake.
I seek meaning.
Today
I believe food must be:
• Clean
• Elegant
• Story-driven
• Health-conscious
• Culturally aware
• Technically precise
I believe a dish should feel like art.
Like a film scene.
Like architecture.
Like music.
I want my food to be my next great work.
When I cook, I am not just feeding you.
I am inviting you into a narrative.
Into a house.
Into a memory.
And in that kitchen, my grandmother is still there.
More about me
For me, cooking is...
Where everything starts. My sanctuary as an Alchemist and Artist. The place where great thing happens. Anywhere I'm at, the Kitchen is my home.
I learned to cook at...
I made a carrer in documentary filmmaking. In the past 5 years my passion for food threw me into professional kitchens. I hope to become a Grand Chef.
A cooking secret...
Clean and Neat. White cotton/linen blend. Lavender Lemonade. Mozart.
Book your experience with Chef Carlos
Specify the details of your requests and the chef will send you a custom menu just for you.
Take a Chef services in nearby cities
Discover cities near Worcester where you can enjoy a Chef At Home service
Cities where you can enjoy a Chef
Discover cities of United States where you can enjoy our experiences.