It’s been many miles and years since Diana DeLucia picked and packed boxes of tomatoes on her father’s farm in Queensland, Australia, at 4 a.m. before heading off to school. She didn’t even like the smell of tomatoes.
But it would stand to reason that a young girl who grew up eating food grown right out the back door would take her wandering taste buds far away to the United States – home to the Statue of Liberty, which she imitated in costume as a child every chance she got at family functions.
Now at “nearly 60,” DeLucia is the driving force behind Golf Kitchen, a brand she created with various print media, designed to shine a spotlight on the top chefs and culinary history at the world’s top private golf clubs.
“I knew there had to be good chefs in the private-club industry because members of really nice clubs can eat anywhere in the world,” said DeLucia, who lives in Stamford, Connecticut. “They know their wines, bourbons and spirits, and they know fine dining from regular dining.”
DeLucia, who is not a golfer, also wondered why golf publications regularly featured top private golf courses, and often their club professionals, but not the chefs who ran the dining rooms of those exclusive golf clubs.
That was how Golf Kitchen was born and why she created the brand whose purpose is to curate golf culinary history and the stories of chefs in the industry, as well as to create new opportunities for private-club chefs.
As a commercial photographer, DeLucia moved to New York City in 2002 and became part-owner of a magazine called New York Restaurant Insider. The 36-page magazine was distributed to about 10,000 chefs and restaurants each month, with DeLucia writing some stories, taking the photographs, handling ad sales and attending culinary events.
“I was learning and meeting world-famous chefs as I went, and literally, my first restaurateur from New York City was Sirio Maccioni of Le Cirque in 2004,” she said. “Every issue, I was like, ‘Who is this Thomas Keller guy? Who is Jean-Georges [Vongerichten]? Marcus Samuelsson? Eric Ripert?’ It was crazy because I would call them on the phone and ask if they wanted to be on the cover of our magazine.”
Perhaps it was luck coupled with naivete, but chance meetings with chefs such as Anthony Bourdain and Charlie Trotter, and a career-shifting photo assignment to shoot the high-end pizza at New York City’s Scopa restaurant, set DeLucia on a path she never expected to take.
“I discovered that I was really good at food photography,” she said.
The economic recession shuttered her restaurant magazine in 2009, but that was also around the time when she began pondering the golf industry’s culinary scene and thinking about her next media venture.
It was also when cellular telephones exploded on the mass market and food bloggers in New York City suddenly were posting their reviews in spaces once occupied by experienced culinary media. DeLucia wanted to reclaim her place, but in areas bloggers could not access. She thought of Formula 1 auto racing and polo, and then discovered the private-club golf industry.
“I did a lot of market research, and I knew there were plenty of chefs in private clubs that you never see anything written about,” she said. “That was around the same time that I had a column in Destination Golf China magazine that was called “Golf Kitchen” in Chinese, so that’s where the name came from.”
“(A magazine editor) told me in that meeting that no one will ever want to read about chefs in golf. I knew he was wrong. The rest is history.” — Diana DeLucia
However, the boards at private clubs did not exactly welcome or embrace DeLucia’s concept. She heard the word “no” a lot, but she always believed that “no” would not be “no” forever.
That window of opportunity opened at Sebonack Golf Club in Southampton, New York. Club owner and founder Michael Pascucci approved her visit with the kitchen staff at Sebonack, and the club was featured in her first book, Golf Club World: Behind the Gates, in 2013.
The culinary history of New York’s Winged Foot Golf Club was featured in the first chapter of her second book, Golf Kitchen, in 2016, along with chef profiles from 16 clubs around the world, including Casa de Campo Resort (Dominican Republic), Kingston Heath Golf Club (Australia), Royal Adelaide Golf Club (Australia), Emirates Golf Club (Dubai) and The K Club (Ireland).
DeLucia orchestrated a lavish member-guest party at Winged Foot that same year and brought in chefs from Sebonack, Emirates, Royal Isabela (Puerto Rico) and Kiawah Island (South Carolina) to cook featured dishes and sign copies of the book.
“I remember at Winged Food, the GM of another private club came up to me and asked why they weren’t approached to be a part of that event,” DeLucia said. “I said, ‘Well, actually, you were asked, but your board shut it down.’ Now, I’m hoping to work with that property either this year or next year.”
In addition to the “no” answers, there were plenty of naysayers along the way. DeLucia recalls meeting with a magazine editor during a PGA Merchandise Show to try to get him to write a story about her golf-culinary publication.
“He told me in that meeting that no one will ever want to read about chefs in golf,” DeLucia said. “I knew he was wrong. The rest is history.”
DeLucia held another culinary event with golf chefs at Cassique at Kiawah Island Club (South Carolina), and that’s where chefs encouraged her to launch Golf Kitchen magazine in 2017. That event spring-boarded into Golf Kitchen Punta Mita in Mexico, in 2018 and 2019 – two golf-culinary events that once again showcased numerous private-club chefs, their signature dishes and enabled the chefs to network with one another and private-club owners and members. It also led to the inaugural Golf Kitchen Culinary Excellence Award in 2018, and an accompanying golf tournament.
By then, DeLucia had amassed an archive of stories, photos and recipes of golf-industry food professionals and had plans to write another book, but the COVID pandemic hit, and all plans slammed to a halt.
It was a tough time everywhere, including in the culinary realm of the golf industry. Many chefs were laid off or were relocating. The public was hunkered down. And DeLucia wondered whether her book about golf’s culinary history would ever be published.
“My book idea had fallen apart, and I was wondering how I was going to keep this magazine and brand going,” she said.
As the world finally emerged out of the pandemic, DeLucia noticed a trend that validated her hunch all along. Chefs from such destination restaurants such as The French Laundry in Napa Valley, California, were gravitating into the private-club culinary sector.
“The Stanwich Club [Connecticut] now has Corey Chow, who came from Per Se in New York City, and Stephen Yen from the Tao Group is now the executive chef at Liberty National Golf Course,” she said. “All of the big chefs were learning that club cuisine is on par, if not better, than many in the restaurant industry.”
Private clubs also were taking a more serious view of their culinary offerings, she said.
“Many clubs ignored the culinary part of their industry for a long time, and now younger members were wanting great food as well as great golf,” DeLucia said. “Private golf clubs needed talented kitchen staff, and you could see top restaurant chefs looking for culinary opportunities at these clubs where they are well paid, become a part of a family and have health benefits and bonuses.”
“Having this massive collection of the golf industry’s culinary history is huge for me, and I want to leave that behind for the sake of history and to help younger chefs learn.” — Diana DeLucia
Of her current projects, DeLucia is completing and expanding the book idea she had when the pandemic disrupted her plans: focusing on 15 years of golf culinary history with each chef, club, general manager, dish and recipe she has written and photographed over the years. She is up to Volume 3 with 386 pages each and hopes to complete the project by the end of the year.
“You learn a lot after traveling for 15 years all over the world making connections with country club chefs and general managers,” she said. “Having this massive collection of the golf industry’s culinary history is huge for me, and I want to leave that behind for the sake of history and to help younger chefs learn.”
DeLucia has traveled to 48 countries, featured chefs from about 100 golf clubs in the United States, and international golf-club chefs from at least 20 nations in her books and magazine.
Never short on vision or shy about dreaming big, DeLucia – who completed one year of computer science after high school – has loads of ideas for future projects.
Although she was turned down by Augusta National in 2015, she still hopes to write the entire history of the Masters Champions Dinner, re-creating the dinners with top club chefs and telling the stories of the winners and dinners, recipes, the missing years during wartime and the history of the annual tradition.
She also hopes to find sponsorship to bring back a golf tournament for chefs at the Golf Kitchen Culinary Excellence Award event, and to sponsor the Golf Kitchen pro-am, an event she has planned with PGA Champions Tour player Rob Labritz. She even has ideas for a television series pilot exploring the culinary side of golf.
DeLucia serves on the board of Golf Brands Group (a golf industry branding and digital marketing group), working on a concept to improve the branding of golf clubs’ culinary focus.
“Food is one of the avenues they want to explore,” she said.
Another big dream for DeLucia is to help initiate a reciprocal international staging opportunity between private-club properties on a global scale. The program she envisions would be something like a temporary chef exchange, giving chefs opportunities to learn about new foods and techniques abroad, then taking that experience back home to implement at their home club.
“They would get more live, international experience, which makes for better chefs,” she said. “It would also help chefs stay at the club that has invested in them.”
And while the naysayers always will be a part of her own history, DeLucia is buoyed by the support of partnerships with Golf Kitchen by such culinary-industry heavy hitters as Spanish chef Ferran Adrià, whose El Bulli restaurant earned three Michelin stars. Considered to be one of the world’s top chefs and the pioneer of the innovative culinary trend known as molecular gastronomy, Adrià launched a new Texturas product line, which has partnered with Golf Kitchen magazine.
She also has received advertising support from Chefs’ Warehouse and has featured its CEO, Chris Pappas, who plays golf with acclaimed chef Thomas Keller. Keller hosts the Thomas Keller Golf Classic each year to raise scholarship money for Culinary Institute of America students.
“Their support helps us and helps the industry,” DeLucia said. “It shows that these fine-dining gurus – giants in the culinary industry – also appreciate golf-club chefs.”
Fortunately, DeLucia’s commitment to those individuals has been unshaken by past closed minds and closed doors. She calls the growth of her innovative concept “gratifying” and believes Golf Kitchen not only will continue to tell stories, but also keep stirring the pot in a burgeoning industry.
“If the brand grows, there is more public opportunity for these club chefs and clubs,” she said. “And that can only help elevate the industry for everyone.”