Chef Marc Lopez

North America

Marc Lopez is an Executive Chef for Gate Gourmet Division Americas and is based in the Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas, kitchen. He also has served in the capacity of Executive Chef for the company in Denver, St. Louis, and Chicago. In Chicago, Chef Marc was named the Executive Chef for American Airlines and has assisted the carrier with menu design and planning for a number of new service launches, including operations in Delhi and Shanghai.

Chef Marc was born in May 1965 in Mulhouse, Alsace France (Black Forest), and spent his childhood in Normandy, between Rouen and le Havre, following his mother around the kitchen. When he was 15 years old, he left home to pursue a cooking apprenticeship at the restaurant le Marais at Carnon Plage Herault under the tutelage of Executive Chef Pierre Methadier and Chef Pierre's wife Odette. Two years later, Marc traveled to Paris to work for another restaurant, le Drugstorien, in the world-famous Champs Elysees, under the supervision of Chef Jean Pipourdin.

In 1990, he joined the Marriott Roissy Charles de Gaulle Airport as Chef de Partie and handled the UTA and Pan Am accounts. Over the next eight years, Chef Marc continued to gain valuable experience: He coordinated VIP charters for the Royal Family of Saudi Arabia; worked for Caterair in London Heathrow and helped open kitchens in Lisbon, Frankfurt and Sao Paulo; spent time with Santana Catering in Puerto Rico; helped open a Caribbean catering service kitchen in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, and then joined Dobbs in Chicago, where he was responsible for widebody aircraft kitchen operations.

Thanks to his extensive travels and work experience in North and South America and Europe, Chef Marc is fluent in Spanish, English and Portuguese, in addition to his native French. He thanks his wife Fabiola for her support throughout the years, and for their wonderful son Nicolas, "who at 3 years old already calls himself Chef Nicolas."