Keegan Gerhard
D Bar Denver | Denver
October 2019
While assisting Master Pastry Chef Jacquy Pfeiffer, Keegan Gerhard was inspired by the Frenchmen’s standards and style in the kitchen. That formative experience would inform the rest of his career. Gerhard went on to work at Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago, the Waldorf Astoria in New York, and with the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. He then became corporate pastry chef for iconic New York grocery chain Dean & Deluca, before joining the Four Seasons in Chicago as executive pastry chef, and later serving in the same capacity for Wynn Las Vegas.
Gerhard is perhaps most notably recognized as the host and head judge of more than 200 episodes of Food Network’s Food Network Challenge and Last Cake Standing. In 2008, the “Dessert Doctor” fulfilled a dream and opened D Bar restaurant in Denver with his wife and business partner, Pastry Chef Lisa Bailey. Since, D Bar has become a Denver mainstay and the duo has opened D Bar Desserts in San Diego, spreading his fun yet precise approach to pastries to the West Coast. Gerhard was name one of the nation’s top 10 pastry chefs of 2002 and 2004 by both Chocolatier and Pastry Arts & Design magazines. He also served as technical advisor to Team USA for the 2001 Pastry World Cup, which brought home the gold medal, and in 2012, was honored with a Doctorate of Culinary Arts from Johnson & Wales University.
