Brandon Edwin Chrostowski is on a mission to change the face of re-entry in the United States. In 2007, he founded EDWINS Leadership & Restaurant Institute, with the belief that every human being regardless of their past has the right to a fair and equal future. Under Chrostowski’s leadership, EDWINS has grown to include culinary education and life skills training at its flagship Cleveland, Ohio restaurant and Second Chance Life Skills Center, a program at Grafton Correctional Institute, and curriculum for inmates of all 30 Ohio prisons.
A trained chef and sommelier, Chrostowski has worked at some of the finest restaurants in Paris, New York, and Chicago, including Lucas Carton, Chanterelle, Picholine, Le Cirque and Charlie Trotter’s. He earned dozens of awards including CNN Heroes, Crain’s 40 under 40 and The Richard C. Cornuelle Award from the Manhattan Institute for Social Entrepreneurship and is the subject of the Academy nominated documentary, “Knife Skills”. He’s expanded his mission with the opening of EDWINS Butcher Shop and Training Center in the heart of the Buckeye-Shaker neighborhood. The new venture is broadening the culinary knowledge of students enrolled in the EDWINS program, while providing the Buckeye-Shaker neighborhood with its first fresh meat vendor in over 30 years. Next up for Brandon, Edwins Bakery and Training Center, which is set to open at the end of 2019. Chrostowski holds an Associate’s degree in Culinary Arts and a Bachelor’s degree in Business and Restaurant Management from The Culinary Institute of America. He is married to Catana and is the proud father of Leo and Lilly.