Brad Steelman

Brad Steelman is the Executive Chef of The River Café, a role he has held since 2000. That long tenure points to accumulation rather than flash: service after service, a kitchen voice becoming part of the room itself.

Since 2000, Steelman has served as Executive Chef of The River Café in Brooklyn, New York, where the cooking associated with his tenure is Classic American cuisine. The phrase reads as measured confidence rather than nostalgia: familiar dishes handled with restraint, then refined until they feel both generous and exact. One signature work is Ravioli and Oxtail, described as having a little tab that catches the sauce.

The detail is small, but it says plenty about the craft: attention to texture, and to the way sauce should cling, gather, and finish each bite. Another dish, Pancetta-Wrapped Roasted Rabbit Loin, is paired with delicate artichoke and rabbit. The pairing suggests balance and contrast—richness around lean meat, delicacy set against savory depth—without crowding any one element. A third signature is the Slow smoked Heritage pork belly & Maine sea scallop duet with pink pineapple gastrique, toasted macadamia, smoky pork jus.

Its structure moves between land and sea, smoke and sweetness, crunch and gloss, with the gastrique and macadamia giving lift while the jus deepens the finish. The through-line is continuity. Across these dishes, and across years at The River Café in Brooklyn, New York, Steelman’s cooking favors coherence over spectacle, returning to a style that has been maintained and understood with discipline.

Brad's signature dishes include Ravioli and Oxtail, Pancetta-Wrapped Roasted Rabbit Loin, and Slow smoked Heritage pork belly & Maine sea scallop duet.