Rodney Cerdán
Pastry Chef
Born and raised in San Francisco to a Spanish Basque father and El Salvadorean mother, 33-year-old pastry chef Rodney Cerdán found his calling early. As a child, Cerdán would create haute baked fare for his three siblings in the family’s toaster oven, mimicking the love and precision of his favorite television chefs. When his mother, a wrapper of iconic See’s Candies, brought home boxes of her wares, he would diligently sample them all to judge which flavor combinations worked best. (Anything with dark chocolate usually won.)
Eventually Cerdán realized he possessed more than a simple sweet tooth, and after a short stint as an actor in Los Angeles, he returned home to enroll in the California Culinary Academy, where he graduated in 2005. Cerdán’s first job was at Roy’s Hawaiian restaurant in San Francisco–lots of passionfruit and pineapple–before he joined DeLessio’s Market and Bakery in 2006.
For four years, DeLessio’s exquisite cakes, tarts, cookies, chocolates, breakfast pastries and custom creations were Cerdán’s dominion, all with a strong focus on seasonal, farm-fresh local ingredients. For Cerdán it was hard work but exactly the right fit, and he quickly moved through the ranks from baker to lead pastry chef as DeLessio’s operation grew to comprise two locations and a kiosk as well as catering.
In 2009, Cerdán moved to Bi-Rite Creamery & Bakeshop in San Francisco’s Mission District, where he crafted high-end baked goods–pies, cupcakes, fresh-fruit cakes–and ice cream mix-ins–housemade graham crackers, toffee, chocolates, cookies–with the same philosophy of care, sense of place and seasonality as at DeLessio’s. Though he enjoyed the fond, relaxed return to the fundamentals of baking (and away from usual bakers’ hours that begin around 3:00 a.m.), Cerdán soon felt he needed to grow and learn, and when the opportunity came to join the kitchen of The Village Pub, he was thrilled.
At The Village Pub, Cerdán continues his lifelong credo of using the local, hyper-seasonal bounty of his Bay Area home and lots of love in his creations. His elegant desserts are fuss-free and zero in on ingredients’ individual flavors, as with his orange-honey semolina cake with olive oil, honey, toasted almonds, blood oranges and marscapone cream. Combinations manage to strike a balance between the natural and the slightly unexpected, as with his lemon souffle tart, almost a buttermilk pie topped with lemon souffle, crème anglaise and honeycomb candies.
When not at work, Cerdán can be found at the symphony, theatre, browsing modern art, bakeries or discovering new burger spots. What else does he do to relax? Bakes, of course–including bacon chocolate chip cookies now famous among his family and friends.
