ABOUT GAVIN

Gavin began his career as a chef over twenty-five years ago and is fortunate to have worked for some very influential chefs over the years, most notably as Sous Chef for multiple award-winning Chef Stephan Pyles. He also served as Pyles' assistant on his television show "New Tastes From Texas", which gave him the opportunity to work for many other celebrity guest chefs, including Rick Bayless and Patricia Quintana.

An award-winning chef in his own right, Gavin has been featured in a number of national magazines and newspapers, including Sunset and the San Francisco Chronicle. In 2003, his restaurant The Blacksmith was named by Conde Nast Magazine as one of the 66 New Best Restaurants in the World, making it at the time the only restaurant in Oregon to have ever achieved that honor.

Gavin’s interest in photography was first piqued when he was working for Chef Pyles, who would often ask him to help set up the food for photo shoots for a new cookbook. Throughout his culinary career, when he himself was often in front of the camera, this interest grew as he worked with food stylists on many other cookbook and magazine shoots. An important turning point for him came when he worked closely with Northwest photographer Rick Schafer to help put together the very successful cookbook "A Chef's Bounty: Celebrating Oregon's Cuisine".