David Seigal

Seigal graduated from Brandeis University in 1998 with a BA in Latin American literature. Following college, Seigal worked in finance as an equity research analyst at JP Morgan Chase and Bear Stearns but, after three years, decided to leave finance to pursue his passion for food. He began working in various Manhattan restaurants to gain industry experience and, in 2003, graduated from ICE’s Culinary Management Program. Since then, he has worked on the opening team of The Tangled Vine wine bar on the Upper West Side, collaborated with Stonyfield Organic Yogurt founder Gary Hirschberg, and cooked at multiple other restaurants in the city. In particular, while working as a chef at Mercat in 2007, the New York Times deemed Seigal’s “fideos negros” dish one of the “top 10 dishes of the year.”

In April 2013, he opened Cull & Pistol, a seafood restaurant housed in New York’s Chelsea Market, which immediately received four stars from the New York Daily News. When asked how his education at ICE contributed to his success, Seigal responds: “The Culinary Management program at ICE was instrumental in helping me think analytically from a business standpoint, beyond a culinary ‘what tastes good and how do I get it on the plate’ perspective. I've opened 6 restaurants since 2003, and in retrospect, the curriculum at ICE helped develop my hospitality philosophy for each of those businesses.”