Owner, Reed’s Cakes and Catering
Hometown: Baton Rouge by way of Singapore
Age: 37
It’s rare for a chef to take home top honors at Fête Rouge two years in a row. It’s probably even more rare for that chef to be a stay-at-home dad and caterer.
But Matt Reed accomplished that feat, grabbing Best in Show at the local culinary event in 2014 for a dessert duo inspired by his newborn twins, and again in 2015 for a jambalaya sandwich constructed from 20 locally sourced ingredients.
People have since taken notice of the under-the-radar caterer and cooking instructor, and his passion for cooking and life shines through in every carefully crafted dish.
• Reed fell in love with cooking in Singapore, where his family spent time when he was young and he worked in a Domino’s Pizza at 14. By the time he graduated high school, he had worked in two Michelin-starred restaurants in Singapore.
• While at LSU, he opened a beignet shop inside the French House and expanded to lunch items.
• For the past two years, Reed has taught cooking classes at Acadian House Kitchen + Bath and private cooking demonstrations in homes. He is aiming for participants to get not just instructions for a recipe, but a real curiosity about sourcing ingredients and mastering difficult techniques. “It’s so cliché—‘teach a man to fish’—but that’s what it is. I’m trying to teach an overall concept of cooking and how to find what’s lacking in all your dishes.”
• Reed says what sets his catering business apart is how he builds each menu off the personal tastes of clients. “We do a lot of research, ask a lot of questions and build a menu from scratch. And they are all kind of one-of-a-kind,” he says.
• The catering business started growing just before his twins were born. Reed says he and his wife decided that he could focus on catering while raising their children, and he hasn’t regretted it in the least. “The reason I am in the spot that I am is because of that. The reason I’m not in a restaurant right now is so I can take care of them.”
Looking ahead to 2016:
“At this stage of the game, I’m spending a lot of time talking to other chefs all about finding that intersect of what’s in your heart and what’s on the plate. When that dish came across so well (his twins-inspired dessert at Fête Rouge), it was kind of an epiphany that I need to base all of my food on this passion for my own life. That’s what 2016 is looking like.”
“Matt treats each day and each event as if it is the best day of his life. It is this passion and infectious love of life that make him a phenomenal caterer and chef.”
—Renée Dugas, Baton Rouge Epicurean Society executive director
