Connecticut native Brian Stickel, executive chef of Clyde’s of Tysons Corner, has a family member who quite possibly played the defining role in his career choice. “My grandmother had a cooking show in West Virginia,” he says. “And my mom, who is German, cooks very well.” Surrounded by cooks at home, Stickel naturally worked in restaurants, both in the front of the house and in the kitchen. “I learned about restaurant camaraderie,” he says. “It gave me a real rush.” But while he was a history student at the University of Connecticut, Stickel heard a comment that changed his life. Watching him cook at home, friends asked, “Why don’t you do this professionally?”
When he was accepted at the Culinary Institute of America, he says, all rules and techniques made sense. “I understood why I was taking these classes,” he says. And as a further incentive to embrace the culinary life, he externed in Napa Valley at the restaurant Pinot Blanc under chef Joachim Splichal. “It was a cool place to hang out,” he says.
