Growing up in a food-loving family, Andy Kitko expressed his earliest artistic desires with brush and canvas, but it wasn’t long before he uncovered an equally meaningful creative conduit via cutting boards and knives. The Connecticut native brings a skilled understanding of ingredients and an abundance of modern American cooking experience to his position as executive chef of Butcher and Singer, Stephen Starr’s classic Philadelphia steakhouse.

Kitko was schooled on cooking from an early age by his grandmother, whose garden provided the source material for many a classic Italian-American dish. Needing “to follow his heart and passion,” he relocated to the West Coast after high school to attend the California Culinary Academy. The move introduced the young East Coaster to multiple disciplines he’d never been exposed to before — fresher-than-fresh sushi, a multitude of ethnic cuisines, and, most vitally, the inspiring seasonal approach of the California cuisine movement.

In San Francisco, Kitko the student worked at the iconic restaurant Stars, where he absorbed experience with Middle Eastern and Mediterranean flavors, as well as at the fine-dining Aqua for chef Michael Mina. An internship at the Ritz Carlton saw Kitko boning up on classical French technique under chef Sylvain Portay, an experience that led to a two-year run on the line at the Michelin-starred Restaurant Gary Danko.

Pursuing a lifelong desire to cook in New York City, Kitko shot back to the East Coast to work at the Michelin-starred Café Boulud, and its namesake, Daniel Boulud, one of his cooking idols. In 2005, Kitko returned to California, taking on his first head chef post at Bar Tartine in San Fran’s Mission District. His success there led to a return to Aqua, this time in a sous chef position. Under chef Laurent Manrique, Kitko contributed to a team that earned the restaurant a second Michelin star, further honing his hand with seafood and picking up a sharp Basque cooking repertoire along the way.

Kitko’s second head chef opportunity saw him running the show at Palmetto, a Mediterranean-style San Francisco restaurant that allowed him to blend the polished technique he developed in New York with the ingredient-first approach of Left Coast kitchens. From here, the chef jetted to his wife’s hometown of Washington, D.C., first going farm-to-table at Bethesda’s Redwood, then making an impression as head chef of Cedar, an intimate boutique-style restaurant that allowed him to a put a truly personal stamp on the daily menu. Here he cultivated a reputation as a “chef’s chef,” earning an industry following as someone unafraid to explore unorthodox and adventurous possibilities in the kitchen.

A longtime admirer of the city’s restaurant scene, Kitko fell into his groove fast in Philadelphia, taking over as head chef at Center City’s popular Oyster House in early 2011. Introduced at Butcher and Singer in the spring of 2012, Kitko relishes the challenge of balancing an unparalleled meat program with specials that reflect the season, the region and his own culinary whims. “I start with the ingredients and go from there,” says Kitko of his measured approach to food. “When you’re getting the best ingredients, you have to know how to show them off. I concentrate on what’s important.”