Our Little Secret Personal Culinary Services, LLC

Chef's Bio

In his spare time, Thom is a fine artist and musician, specializing in stringed instruments such as the guitar, and has been known to sing, usually in the shower. With a magnetic personality and sense of humor, Chef Thom brings a high level of spontaneity and excitement to the experience of eating and eating well.

While dining at many different restaurants and having many poor experiences Thom felt the need for a change. After 20 years of working in restaurants, healthcare, and corporate fine dining Thom decided to share his talent and knowledge of food on a more personal level. That's how Our Little Secret PCS began!

Chef Thom Knipe started his culinary career at a young age, working his way up through the industry to achieve the status of Executive Chef in the heart of the new Wall Street West in Downtown Jersey City. While indulging his passion for travel, Thom has had the opportunity to cook overseas in Sennen Cove, Cornwall, Great Britain. More recently, his culinary adventures guided him to Hong Kong and Macau, studying their culture, cuisines, cooking techniques, as well as new and exciting ingredients never seen by those in the West!

Having studied Continental American, Mexican, Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Italian, and Vegetarian cuisines, Chef Thom has bridged the gap of these worlds and brought them together, all for you to enjoy at your own dining room table. With the ability to create dishes from many facets of the culinary world, he excels in fine dining, refreshing and simple European bistro style food, home-style comfort cooking, as well as upscale catered affairs and banquets.

Thom achieved the Associates in Applied Sciences Degree for Culinary Arts at the Culinary Institute of Hudson County College in 1991. Always eager to learn, in 2008 he has received his Food Safety Manager's certification from ServSafe, the nationally recognized industry standard in safe food handling practices. Thom is also a proud member of the United States Personal Chef Association and successfully completed the Personal Chef program at the Culinary Business Academy in Rio Rancho, New Mexico.

Thom has a sense of pride and understanding of what family and good food means. Being brought up in a modest American-Italian household, Thom learned early on how food brought the family together. His grandmother, Marie, brought him into the kitchen at an young age and taught him everything she knew about cooking and what it meant to the family. With the memory of Marie acting as his inspiration, he is dedicated to carrying on many of the traditions that his grandmother started for her family decades ago.

Chef Thom wants to bring you the same comfort and passion he learned early on about food, the relationships it can create, and dazzle your taste buds.