Although his formal education is
in the visual arts, chef and
partner Scott
Snyder has
been cooking professionally
since 1974. Born in Toledo,
Ohio, he moved to California at
the age of ten with his parents,
sisters and brother, and has
spent the better part of his
life there, except for stints in
Minneapolis, Syracuse—where he
went to graduate school—and now
the Finger Lakes.
He began his cooking career
while he was a student at the
University of California, Davis,
slinging hash at a nearby
roadhouse, and never looked
back. In 1985, he found himself
in Sonoma County’s wine country
and there his culinary career
went into high gear. It was
there that he became keenly
aware of the ideas of Mark
Miller, Alice Waters, Masataka
Kobayashi, Hiro Sone, Jeremiah
Tower and other notable West
Coast chefs, and that he
realized cooking could be an
exciting avenue for invention.
Scott has led kitchens, as
executive chef, chef de cuisine,
or co-chef, at venues such as
Bagatelle in Stockton,
California, Mistral (where he
met future partner Laura Kudla),
Sassafras, both in Sonoma
County, and Embarko in San
Francisco. Over the years his
cooking has earned favorable
reviews in a good number of
publications, among them the
Santa Rosa Press Democrat, the
Sonoma County Independent, the
San Francisco Chronicle, and
California Magazine and the
(Elmira, New York) Star-Gazette.
In the course of his many years
in restaurant kitchens, Scott
has practiced many styles:
classical French, Nouvelle
French, Mediterranean,
“California” (though he insists
there is really no such thing),
“Fusion”, and more, yet his real
passion for the last fifteen
years has been to research,
embrace, and interpret regional
styles of North America. Scott’s
approach to food at MadderLake
Café is to strive to marry his
interpretation and recombination
of American Regional cuisines
with the best quality raw
materials Western and Central
New York State has to offer. His
hope is that at some point in
the not too distant future
MadderLake will prove to have
made at least a small
contribution to the development
of a distinctive, wine friendly
Finger Lakes cuisine.
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Manager, sommelier, and partner Laura
Kudla embarked
on her restaurant career when
she first moved to Sonoma County
in 1986. She was born in
Phoenix, Arizona, and raised in
Portland, Oregon, Vancouver, and
southeastern Idaho. After
“paying her dues” in restaurants
waiting tables for several
years, she soon found herself
being sought out to assume
management duties. To date, she
has held key management
positions in at least six
restaurants, most of them in
Northern California’s wine
country. She served as general
manager and wine program
director at Sassafras (where her
wine list won a gold medal at
the 2002 Sonoma County Harvest
Fair), and at Mistral in Santa
Rosa. She was also on the
opening management team at
Martini House, Pat Kuleto’s
high-profile restaurant in the
Napa Valley.
Laura has also professionally
judged a number of wine
competitions, among them the
Sonoma County Harvest Fair in
2001, the Grand Harvest Awards
in 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2004,
the West Coast Wine Competition
in 1998, 2000, and 2004, and the
International East Coast Wine
Competition in 2005. She is also
an avid equestrian, having been
coached by several Olympic-level
trainers, and has trained many
young horses, including a number
of Grand Prix-caliber hopefuls.
As if she weren’t busy enough,
Laura is also a runner, having
completed, to date, one marathon
and two half-marathons. In
addition to her athletic
pursuits, Laura has a keen
interest in modern and
contemporary art and
architecture.
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Though he is relatively new to the
restaurant business, sous chef Kevin
King, according to Scott, has
“already exhibited many of the qualities
that make a real chef. Kevin learns
extraordinarily quickly, and works very
hard. He is keenly intelligent and he
pays great attention to detail. I hope I
can keep him here at MadderLake for a
good, long time.”
Kevin graduated from Geneva’s Hobart
College in 2004 with a degree in
sociology, though by then he had already
caught the “restaurant bug” having
cooked in restaurants “to pay the bills”
for nearly two years. He is also an avid
and accomplished athlete. In college he
was named to the New York State All-Star
Rugby team; in high school, he was named
Most Valuable Player in the western
Pennsylvania All-Star soccer game, and
broke three school records in track and
field.
Kevin is “excited about discovering the
world of fine food and wine”. His near
term goal is to continue to help make
MadderLake Café an integral part of the
developing Finger Lakes cuisine, and,
long term, intends to “one day be a
great chef”.
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MadderLake in the press:
"Mad about MadderLake," Jeff
Richards, Star-Gazette,
8/20/05
"A Handful of Must-do Finger Lakes
Activities" and "Water and Wine,"
Mike Dunne, The
Sacramento (CA) Bee, 9/04/05
"It Actually Means Red," Bryan Roth, Finger
Lakes Times, 2/15/06
"From California, A New American
Cuisine," Emily Ruthig, Rochester
Business Journal, 2/24/06
"Vibrant fare, with a local touch,"
Karen Deyle, Democrat
and Chronicle, July 6, 2006.
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