Ben Roche’s Bio
Ben Roche
Pastry Chef – Moto Restaurant
Director of Research and Development – Cantu Designs
Chef Ben Roche is one of the worlds most creative culinary geniuses. In less than 3 years as Executive Pastry Chef of Moto in Chicago, news of Ben’s work has been the subject of numerous print articles and national television shows including Iron Chef America, Dinner: Impossible, Unwrapped, Sugar Rush and print articles including USA Today, The Chicago Sun Times, The Chicago Tribune, Fast Company Magazine and Gourmet Magazine.
Ben has also been featured as a keynote speaker at prestegious gatherings around the world for his inspirational approach to innovation that influences numerous aspects of creative sciences. These appearances have included a design symposioum for the Nasa Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC), Stanford University’s Design School, Taste 3 Napa Valley in both 2007 and 2008, Pop Tech’s Impact of Technology on People in Camben Maine and numerous other venues.
When asked to describe himself, Chef Roche simply states, “I look to improve ideas we are all familiar with and reconstruct them to meet todays challenges with food and technology.”
Chef Roches involvement with food does not stop at the kitchen level, he has also been an instrumental R&D collaborator with Cantu Designs which is currently working on innovative food products for consumer outlets, medical applications and developing nations.
Ben Roche discovered a fascination with the scientific process early on, conducting experiments such as creating Alka Seltzer “bombs” as a boy in his best friend’s kitchen in Beaufort, South Carolina. So it seems fitting that this young, aspiring pastry chef now creates technically innovative and “explosive” desserts at Moto, where the kitchen resembles a lab with tanks of nitrogen gas, helium and liquid nitrogen. Roche’s love of science and his culinary degree (Johnson & Wales, 2001) are in perfect harmony.
Already a world leader in pastry innovation, Chef Roche is poised to take his highly unconventional approach to creativity well beyond the realm of the kitchen.
In 2010 Chef Roche filmed, produced and created his first television series for Discovery Network’s Planet Green titled Future Food. Along with his sidekick Chef Homaro Cantu, Roche displayed his ingenious approach to radically thinking outside the box with food.