Hugh’s story
Hugh Groman’s love for simple, vibrantly flavored food and attention to detail has made him one of the leading caterers in the Bay Area. Established in 2001, Hugh Groman Catering has catered events both large and small throughout the Bay Area including events honoring notables such as Barack Obama, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Nancy Pelosi, Laurence Fishburne, Sally Ride, Arianna Huffington, Harry Belafonte, Harrison Ford, Malcolm Gladwell and Gloria Steinem.
Born in Lafayette, California, Groman grew up in a family passionate about food and entertaining. The youngest of four, he remembers helping his parents and siblings with kitchen prep and cooking from the age of five – almost burning down the house while making potato chips at the age of seven! Drawn to the food and hospitality business, he held restaurant jobs throughout high school and college at Yale where he majored in psychology. After graduation, while living in New York and “checking careers off the list”, Groman heard of an opening at the recently opened Gramercy Tavern and interviewed with Tom Colicchio who gave him a job in the kitchen. Over the next year, he worked in garde manger and mastered and moved up through the stations, ultimately moving to the casual Tavern part of the restaurant which focused on food prepared in the wood-burning grill. Afterwards, he took an extended culinary tour of the United States where he staged in restaurants across the country.
He returned to New York in 1997 where he started a catering business out of his apartment kitchen. In 1999, he opened Boerum Hill Food Company on Brooklyn’s now burgeoning Smith Street. Boerum Hill Food Company was an immediate success thanks to Groman’s delicious, made-from-scratch food and cordial service. Eventually, he decided he needed to move back home to the Bay Area and sold the business in 2001.
He launched Hugh Groman Catering because it allowed him to be creative, project-based and work directly with clients. Hugh Groman Catering is a certified green business by the County of Alameda. In July 2007, he launched Greenleaf Platters, an online service delivering high quality party platters throughout the Bay Area. Most recently, in July of 2011, Hugh and his team opened Phil’s Sliders, a yummy slider restaurant that is the love child of In n Out burger and Chez Panisse. He applies his creativity and love of food when creating menus and recipes and counts among his influences, Tom Colicchio for his aesthetic, commitment to freshness and simplicity and aversion to “tortured food” and Danny Meyer for his business acumen and unwavering dedication to high quality in all areas of his restaurants.
Hugh Groman lives in Berkeley, California with his husband Noah and in his spare time enjoys playing with his doggies, boot camp, reading in his hot tub and watching the Real Housewives of wherever!
