Patrick Fahy

Pastry Chef Blackbird

Returning to his hometown of Chicago after a year at the French Laundry in Napa Valley, Pastry Chef Patrick Fahy is the latest addition to the Blackbird family.

Growing up with kitchen-savvy parents on Chicago’s north side, Fahy developed a passion for cooking from an early age. His first taste of the restaurant industry came when as a teenager he moved to Madison, Wisconsin, where he washed dishes and worked front-of-the-house at J.T. Whitney’s, Smokey’s Steakhouse and, finally, the Admiralty Dining Room in the Edgewater Hotel.

By the age of 21, Fahy had moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, and saved enough money through catering work at two companies, Kelber and D’Amico, to attend culinary school abroad. At the Apicius International School of Hospitality in Florence, Italy, he studied everything from pastry to savory, from wines to proper service language. However, it was his first mentor, Andrea Bianchini, who took Fahy under his wing and instilled in him a passion for pastry.

Fahy worked at Ristorante San Vito on a vineyard in Montelupo with Bianchini. “To this day, my habits and my cooking reflect what I learned there from Andrea,” says Fahy. “He was the pastry chef there, and I also got to work with him in the chocolate shop he had just started. It was and still is called Bottega di Cioccolato di Andrea Bianchini.”

After 14 months in Italy, Fahy returned and worked at several bakeries and Italian restaurants in both Madison and Chicago, including Griglia Tuscany restaurant and a bakery called La Brioche, both in the Madison area. In Chicago, his stints included Bice Ristorante and the now-defunct Albert’s Patisserie. He aquired the majority of his baking experience at Lutz Cafe & Pastry Shop, where he baked cookies and assembled cakes for two years. His tenure there instilled in him the desire to gain more bakery experience, but at a higher level, which led him to Bittersweet Pastry Shop. He was only here for six months, however, due to a new opportunity that he couldn’t pass up: a position at the Ritz-Carlton.

Fahy worked for two years at Chicago’s Ritz-Carlton, beginning with Café desserts and eventually transitioning to banquet production and overnight bakery work. He also picked up extra hours at Canady le Chocolatier, a gourmet chocolate shop in the South Loop, where he built upon his experiences overseas in Bianchini’s chocolate shop. After his first year at the Ritz-Carlton, Fahy decided to enroll at the French Pastry School in Chicago. While simultaneously working 50-plus hours per week, he completed the school’s 24-week program.

A desire to master fine dining is what drew Fahy to Thomas Keller’s famed French Laundry upon the closure of the Ritz-Carlton Dining Room. He started with 14-hour days as a pastry assistant. “There wasn’t much to do in that town, and I didn’t have a car, so I worked, read and practiced pastry,” says Fahy. “I slept and dreamt about pastry. It was boot camp for fine dining.” His 13-month stay at French Laundry taught him the fundamentals of the kitchen: doing everything by hand, cleanliness, proper seasoning, utter precision and working as a team member.

Upon arriving at Blackbird, Fahy found himself a home with what he calls the “Blackbird family.” He credits Chef Paul Kahan and Chef de Cuisine Mike Sheerin for motivating and inspiring him. His goal as Blackbird’s pastry chef, he says, is to serve “half classic flavors and half unique flavors. I want each and every plate to have a full harmony of flavors, and of course, I want each plate to be beautiful.”