Instead of spending hours in front of the TV watching cartoons as a child, Jamie Bissonnette spent hours watching The Discovery Channel’s cooking shows. Bissonnette’s culinary awakening was early in life; by the age of 19 he had already earned his culinary arts degree from The Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale in Florida.

Bissonnette’s early years were used eating and working his way through restaurants and kitchens in Paris, San Francisco, New York, and Phoenix. On the local Boston scene, he's headed up the kitchens at Peking Tom's, Pigalle, Andy Husband's Tremont 647, and Kenmore Square behemoth Eastern Standard.

Bissonnette’s comfort with a full range of international cuisines and culinary techniques has made him a key player in several Ken Oringer restaurants, and together they have a seemingly unstoppable culinary agenda for Boston. Their relationship started when Oringer asked Bissonnette to head up the kitchen at Oringer’s innovative steakhouse KO Prime at the Nine Zero Hotel.

After a successful two-year turn at KO, Oringer asked Bissonnette to head up his Spanish small plates restaurant Toro, which since has developed a reputation as an industry hang out. Striking while the iron is hot, the duo opened another small, neighborhood-style spot, Coppa. As the name suggests, the concept is Italian small plates with house-made pasta and wood-oven pizza.

Bissonnette is a champion of nose-to-tail cuisine and local, sustainable purveyors. He was named a StarChefs.com Boston Rising Star in 2009.