Meet Drew Anderson: The new chef de cuisine at Kai, an award-winning metro Phoenix restaurant

As of June 2, Kai, located at the Sheraton Grand at Wild Horse Pass Resort on the Gila River Indian Reservation, has a new chef de cuisine.

Kai, which means “seed” in the Pima language, is the only AAA Five Diamond and Forbes Five Star restaurant in the state and has maintained the five-star accolade for 14 years, according to a press release.

Drew Anderson has been selected to fill in the vacancy left by the departure of James Beard-nominated chef Ryan Swanson. Swanson was the chef de cuisine for six years before leaving in November 2021 to become the executive sous chef at the Ocean House beach hotel in Rhode Island.

Chef Ryan Swanson leaves Kai: What's next for him at Ocean House

Meet the new chef at Kai

Anderson joined Kai a year ago as a specialty cook after working under the leadership of James Beard award-winning chef Charleen Badman at FnB Restaurant in Old Town Scottsdale.

Originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, before moving to Arizona, he worked at the Spoon and Stable in Minnesota under the leadership of Gavin Kaysen, another James Beard award-winning chef.

Anderson says his passion for culinary arts started when he was a child. He grew up in a family-oriented household where homecooked meals were important. He remembers his house being filled with kids during family barbecues.

Those moments led him to train for a career in the kitchen at Le Cordon Bleu in Mendota Heights, Minnesota.

At Kai, he hopes to create a dining experience that guests will never forget by highlighting the food of Arizona with items sourced from local farms. 

What's on the new tasting menu

Kai offers a set tasting menu ($165 per person), which is influenced by the traditional foods of Pima and Maricopa tribes and features items from the Native Seed/SEARCH Foundation, a program dedicated to preserving ancient lines of Native American seeds.

Highlights of the new menu include the Pee-Posh garden, a dish made with candied pecan soil, confit of baby potatoes, pickled chioggia beets, sunchoke purée and fermented white asparagus and a braised rabbit and squash gnocchi, made with rabbit rillettes, compressed squash, squash seed gremolat and pepita cream. The new dessert is a white and dark chocolate mousse stones, olive oil basil cake, lemon foam and dark cocoa soil.

The menu will change again in August 2022.

Details: Kai. Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort and Spa, 5594 W. Wild Horse Pass Blvd., Gila River Reservation. 602-385-5777, wildhorsepassresort.com.

Reach the reporter at [email protected] or on Twitter @Jonmaesha.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Award-winning Arizona restaurant Kai has a new head chef