Tom Ramsey is a chef, sommelier, raconteur, writer and media personality living in New Orleans, Louisiana. At his “day jobs” he is the Executive Chef of Atchafalaya Restaurant in the Irish Channel neighborhood of New Orleans and writes about food & travel as Contributing Editor of Okra magazine. He appeared on the premiere episode and the “Supermarket Masters Tournament” of Guy’s Grocery Games on the Food Network; made it to the quarterfinals on Season Three of ABC’s The Taste; and was featured on Appetite for Life and Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern. Tom is a widely published writer of recipes, fiction, essays, op-ed pieces and magazine articles. His work has been featured in local, regional and national publications as well as in various online publications. He is currently working on his book Less, but that’s really up to the publishing gods. By night, he wears a mask and a cape and fights crime… not really, but only because he doesn’t currently own a cape and a mask. If he had such things, well…one never knows what he might be up to next.

Although Tom has been cooking since he could reach the knobs of his parent’s stove, he’s only been cooking professionally for eight years. Before trading in his business suits for a manual labor job with his name on his shirt, Tom spent thirteen years as an investment banker, specializing in mergers and acquisitions as well as capital aggregation. The bulk of his investment banking practice was concentrated in the fields of insurance, re-insurance and financial services, but he also worked on transactions in the manufacturing, real estate and consumer products sectors. Tom was also a partner in the lobbying firm Athena Government Relations, was the owner of a cigar manufacturing/importing company and worked for a period of time in the entertainment industry. He has served on numerous boards of directors for charities, service organizations, museums and public and private companies in the US and abroad.

Tom resides in the cool, old Algiers Point neighborhood in New Orleans, Louisiana with his wife and so many cats.