As Vice President & Culinary Director for the Lark Creek Restaurant Group, Adrian Hoffman works in tandem with his talented cadre of restaurant chefs to guarantee culinary excellence at each of the group’s 10 locations, using the best and freshest local, seasonal ingredients.

Hoffman describes his style as “American cuisine inspired by classic European techniques. I try to respect the culture and traditions I borrow from, while also honoring the local farmers and artisan purveyors who provide us with such superb ingredients.”

Hoffman joined the company in 2000 as Chef of the acclaimed One Market Restaurant, where he earned three and a half stars from the San Francisco Chronicle’s Michael Bauer as well as San Francisco Magazine, and was selected as one of five national finalists for the James Beard Foundation’s “Rising Star Chef of the Year” award in 2002.

Hoffman began his culinary career as a busboy at age 13, working for a neighborhood trattoria. When the pizza cook quit, he accepted an offer for the position. Hoffman continued to cook through college at Brandeis University, where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and minors in studio art and economics.

After graduation, Hoffman found his true calling while functioning as a line cook at an Italian restaurant in Boston. "The chef’s passion for food and his attention to the smallest of details opened a new world for me. It was then that I realized I wanted to be a chef,” he says.

He took off soon thereafter to the West Coast and landed in San Francisco where he worked the stoves at Moose’s in its early days. Next, Hoffman returned to the East, cooked at The River Café in Brooklyn and helped open Osteria Del Circo. The turning point in Hoffman’s career came when the Maccioni family of famed New York restaurant Le Cirque sent him abroad as a stagiaire (apprentice) at Italy’s Michelin-starred Ristorante Romano. The trip ignited an extreme case of wanderlust and an insatiable appetite for knowledge of regional cooking. When he returned to the United States, Hoffman joined Todd English as the Sous Chef at the famed Olives in Boston, and in 1999, he opened Tamarind in Israel for Chef English. Hoffman cooked in restaurants in France and Japan before settling in San Francisco at the helm of One Market.

As the Vice President & Culinary Director for Lark Creek Restaurant Group, Hoffman indulges his great interest in exploring technique and regional cuisine. He oversees each restaurant’s chef to interpret and redefine American cuisine and embody the Lark Creek Restaurant Group’s unwavering commitment to provide the best, seasonal, farm-fresh American fare.

In his spare time, Hoffman enjoys traveling and racing motorcycles.