Dan Giusti has a fondness for school lunch programs -- so much so that he left his job as a chef at Noma restaurant in Copenhagen, Denmark, which has two Michelin stars, and where a meal costs an average of $350, to start Brigaid in Connecticut.
Brigaid chefs collaborate with public school food workers to cook fresh, nutritious food from scratch. New York City Public Schools, the nation’s largest public school district, has since launched its own Brigaid program in the Bronx.
Giusti talks about how comically demoralizing it was to go from delighting discriminating diners to disappointing middle school kids. He learned the hard way that kids want comfort food, or at least food they can be comfortable with.