Walter S. Scheib III

Walter S. Scheib III was born on May 3, 1954, in Oakland, California. He grew up outside of Washington, D.C. in Bethesda, Maryland and attended the University of Maryland prior to training as a chef at the Culinary Institute of America in New York.¹ He worked at a series of prominent hotels including the Capital Hilton, the Boca Raton Club and Resort, and the Greenbriar prior to being hired to serve as executive chef at the White House in 1994. First Lady Hillary Clinton selected Scheib with the goal of refocusing White House cuisine on lighter American flavors, rather than the heavy French cuisine of executive chefs past.² 

As executive chef, Scheib planned a variety of meals, from formal souffles to burgers and fries (a favorite for the Bush family).³ He planned the menus for nearly sixty State and Official Dinners over eleven years, catering to the preferences of first families, as well as visiting guests such as Prime Minister Tony Blair, President Nelson Mandela, and Emperor Akihito.⁴ He also witnessed major moments, recalling: “I was there for the happiest of occasions, such as the Millennial New Year's Eve, when the party went so late that butlers could be seen napping in the corridors, and I was there for the saddest of days-- the darkest, of course, being September 11, 2001."⁵ Scheib even taught First Daughter Chelsea Clinton to cook before she left for college.⁶

In 2005, he departed from the White House over culinary differences with the Bush family. After he left, he started his own catering and events business, appeared on the cooking television series “Iron Chef,” and published a memoir titled White House Chef: Eleven Years, Two Presidents, One Kitchen (2007).⁷ Walter Scheib died in 2015 while hiking in northern New Mexico.⁸