Executive Chef Heather Terhune, Natural Born Chef

Before she was a chef, she was simply Heather Terhune, a kid growing up in Vermont and a girl who developed a close connection to the land and its bounty. The maple trees oozed syrup through the taps. The front yard produced strawberries, the backyard blackberries. The Terhune family picked mushrooms and her dad hunted and fished. Then the family would set about readying the provender for eating. Even at that young age, Heather knew cooking was her future. "I knew from an early age that I wanted to be a chef and never wavered in that endeavor," she said.

Her destiny has in fact been centered around pots, pans, knives, recipes, fresh food and imagination. After receiving her Bachelor of Science in agriculture and hotel/restaurant management, she worked toward an Associate's Degree from the New England Culinary Institute, which earned her an externship at Bacco in New Orleans. Following graduation, she applied her talents first at The Willard Room in the Willard Hotel in Washington, DC, and then the Watergate Hotel's Palladin restaurant, as Chef de Partie under famed French Chef Jean Louis Palladin.

After Palladin retired, Chef Terhune ventured in a southerly direction to North Carolina and went to work at Pops Trattoria as the executive sous chef and pastry chef. It was here that her passion for baking came to the fore. Baking particular pastries played a significant role in her arrival to Chicago. Upon starting out with Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants and opening 312 Chicago with Executive Chef Dean Zanella in 1998, Chicago Tribune restaurant critic Phil Vettel raved about Terhune's dessert talents, proclaiming hers among his "Top Ten Summer Dessert" menus.

The following year, she was named Executive Chef for both Atwood Café and then South Water Kitchen in 2005. In 2008, she returned solely to her first love, Atwood Café, "where I'm cooking everyday and it doesn't get much better than that," she says.