Chef Guillermo Hellmund

Although I was born in Austin, Texas, I grew up in Caracas, Venezuela. So it's no surprise that my love of food would start with my own roots. I moved back to the United States when I was 15 years old and started working in restaurants soon after.

As a young chef I found myself living in different cities on the East Coast in places like Miami Beach, New York City, Boston and Houston. I worked in an array of different professional kitchens. Working for notable chefs, such as Norman Van Aken and Jonathan Mortimer; Master Chefs, and both James Beard Award winners.

Chef Aken and Chef Mortimer helped to shape my appreciation for important classic techniques, building flavor and using texture & temperature. But, above all they taught me that great food and incredible dishes come from "letting fresh & natural ingredients speak for themselves" and most importantly using correct technique.

My experiences abroad have given me a rare opportunity to learn about culture and food from the point of view of the dining room as well as the back of the house. From incredible 8 course dinners at Le Cirque 2000 in NYC to a simple roasted chicken in L'Ami Louis in Paris, France. Dinning in a secluded mountain restaurant in Segovia, Spain for their specialty "lechon" and studying in Leysin, Switzerland where the best entrecote and pommes frites were gladly our daily lunch.

I have had the incredible experiences like skippering a 40 ft Sailboat in the British Virgin Islands, scuba diving all around the Dutch Antilles wonderful island reefs, as well as awesome motocross tour thru the dunes of Utah, Idaho and Baja California.

My wife Amy and I live in Marina Del Rey with our fluffy Pekingese (I.M. Pei). We moved to California in 2009 from Boise, Idaho. We are avid golfers and snow skiers and sail as much as we can. Our dream one day would be to follow the snow all around the world and go heli-skiing all year for one year.

I am driven to serve. As the Ritz Carlton Company moto says "we are ladies and gentlemen, serving ladies and gentlemen".

Serving a family with the highest standard takes integrity, discretion, urgency, patience, and hustle. Serving a family well takes a certain amount of real world savvy, street smarts and a life well lived with rich personal life experiences.

Lastly, a great Private Chef has to have a personal style that translates directly into those extraordinary touches that create the ageless style and comfortable elegant feeling that only a detailed and well managed estate can have.

I hold these qualities as the road-map to my success and continue to learn new qualities that help me to serve at the highest standard of care for the families I work for.