William B. White has good taste, and he knows what tastes good. The founder of Bill White Enterprises has been in the restaurant trade since cooking french fries at a drive-in at age 12.
By age 17, White was running the kitchen of a steak house, supervising a staff of 30. At 22, he enrolled at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y. He has been a chef at premier European restaurants and holds a finance degree from Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration.
When White moved to Utah, he bought Park City's Alpine Prospector Hotel with the help of a private investor. Working with a single licensed contractor and future restaurant employees, he restored the building and opened Grappa Italian Restaurant.
Grappa has become a Park City favorite, with a strong local clientele as well as celebrity visitors ranging from Brad Pitt to Al Gore.
With Grappa established, White in 1996 opened a second restaurant, Chimayo, offering "eclectic Southwestern" fare. In 2000, he filled an Asian niche with Wahso, and in late 2001 he opened a delicatessen, Windy Ridge Caf and Bakery.
White's restaurants have received the DIRONA (Distinguished Restaurants of North America) award for the past seven years and the Wine Spectator award for the past eight years. Salt Lake Magazine has several times honored Chimayo and Wahso with statewide recognition and named Windy Ridge best new restaurant in Utah for 2003.
White also has earned personal accolades: besides being profiled in publications from the New York Times to Architectural Digest, he was named by the Robb Report in 1999 as one of the top 10 chefs in the country.