Kelley Slagle

Kelley Slagle is currently the head bartender and mixologist at Hearth Restaurant in NYC’s East Village, a restaurant known for it’s eclectic wine program. After moving to New York in 2002 from California to follow her culinary dreams, she attended the Institute of Culinary Education and completed a degree in Culinary Arts. Not long after, she realized her passion for seasonal and market ingredients was best expressed in the liquid form. While working as a chef, and bartending on the side, she continued to train her palate by attending numerous wine courses and organizing tasting groups. She then went on to complete the Level 3 Advanced Certificate from the Wine and Spirits Education Trust, and did so with Distinction.

Her passion for all-things-fermented is currently expressing itself in homemade vinegars, the study of Agave in all it’s lovely forms and a quest for the unique and hand crafted. She remembers that while attending college in San Francisco during the first micro-brewed beer craze she chose to go to a brewpub over Chez Panisse and is still kicking herself for this decision to this day. Little did she know that her future culinary-school teacher was working there at the time or how profound Chez Panisse was in the restaurant world. So to ease her pain over this decision, she rides her bike around Prospect Park.