Norman Tiedemann
Chef, Owner, Food Lover Extraordinaire

Chef Norman Tiedemann has been in the kitchen since his first job at 15 years old where he started in the dish pit and earned his way up through the ranks of the restaurant world. Unknowingly starting what would be his ongoing career in the culinary arts, in the east coast with some bare basic training in some of the finest mom and pop joints serving calzones, hoagies, and tomato pies.

This led to multiple restaurant experiences and eventually assisting in the opening of an organic & local focused bistro in southern NH. This then flowed into the corporate dining scene. Former classmate, chef John Orthman, from le cordon bleu culinary school, made him an offer he couldn’t refuse which led to a corporate dining and catering. After a couple of years in this new environment, chef Norman decided to follow his dream and intuitions to pack up life in to his suv and travel some 3,200 miles to see where he would land in beautiful California.

It was there that a seemingly divine plan unfolded and still seems to be unfolding to this day. After a 4 week tour across country, chef Norman found himself in the north bay, Santa Rosa area looking for job leads when something came through in San Mateo, an upscale retirement home called “the peninsula regent”. He found himself with gainful employment in a new land, rich with new, fresh, and local foods that he gazed his hungry eyes upon. An amazing passion and fire was ignited at the discovery of all of this new. His greatest and most influential inspiration spoke to his heart; the ingredients! Not only was he seeing a new world of delicious ingredients and varieties that he never knew existed, but they were grown within a stones throw of where he lived! Amazing may be an understatement!

In the flow of life, chef Norman found himself creating connections, through his love of food, to others who would then help him find his own artistic culinary path. One fateful afternoon, he received a call from a friend Joanne. She said “let’s create a farm dinner and source everything within 50 miles!”. He said “sure, sounds like fun!”. But what seemed like just a fun evening and an intense undertaking, would be a critical turning point in the development of his culinary career, leading chef Norman down the rabbit hole of local, organic, regenerative, aquaponic, & sustainable farming and food sources. There was no going back. Chef Norman worked at a few more establishments (such as the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay and Green Hills Country club in Millbrae) prior to his decision to embark on his own self driven journey of providing the finest local foods available to families of the bay area, thus leading to what is now known as, Farm Fresh Chef Personal Chef, LLC.

A beautiful and most magical aspect to his journey is the love he has found with his wife Kristina and the family they created through the birthing of their beautiful baby girl, Leiah. He now enjoys his days being as creative as possible through food, music, nature, and most of all just being with and witnessing the developing love in and of his family.

To be continued . . .