Chef Eric Cooper has been pursuing his love of food on a global quest that’s had him working, teaching and studying the native cuisines of some twenty-five countries (or extra-national territories) on seven continents and occasionally in international waters.

Cooper’s culinary career includes stops in the gastronomic capitols of New York, London, Paris and Madrid as well as the forested islands of Downeast Maine and tree-lined neighborhoods of Boston. He’s cooked everywhere from the dusty townships of South Africa to the mountainside Tibetan refugee camps of northern India to the frigid aimags of western Mongolia to the icy wastes of Antarctica and steep rolling seas of the Drake Passage – all in pursuit of a uniquely broad understanding of food and why we eat it.

After three years at the flagship location of Ten Tables and a busy summer season in the restaurant’s Provincetown outpost, Cooper took charge of the kitchen at the popular Jamaica Plain restaurant. His varied experience and his childhood days in the region have given him a deep understanding of traditional New England cooking that was demonstrated on every plate.

In the spring of 2016, working with fellow Ten Tables alumnus Stan Hilbert, Cooper opened Forage just outside Harvard Square in Cambridge.