From The Court To The Kitchen

Many people expect to see Bruce Meier, tall and lean, attired in his chef’s “whites”: crisply starched white double-breasted chef coat with checkered pants and a tall white toque atop his head. However, the executive chef of the Vero Beach Country Club is equally at home in another set of whites – tennis whites. For Chef Bruce, slamming an aggressive serve during a singles match gives him as much joy as delicately seasoning a light summer pasta dish for his country club clientele.

The fact is, the 57-year-old excels at both. This year he is capping off his 41st year in the food industry, 29 of those years as an executive chef. And while an injury kept him out of national tennis competition this year, he had his best performance ever at the previous Senior Olympics, making it to the second round in the singles held in Louisville.

Tennis, he claims, is not only his passion, it is also the means of keeping him in excellent physical condition for long hours in the kitchen. Over the years there have been many long hours, yet they have been highly rewarding because he not only followed the lure of creativity as it pertained to cooking, he also followed in his Swiss father’s footsteps. Bruce is a first-generation American who began his career working alongside master chef Felix Meier, who had a long career in several of America’s most distinguished kitchens. “I was lucky to have worked by my father’s side not only in the beginning but also at various other times throughout my career,” Bruce says. “He groomed me in all aspects of cooking as well as in the important aspects of business management.”

Read the entire article in the November 2009 issue