Chef Marc Orfaly is the kind of unassuming guy with whom you can have a beer and watch Monday Night Football. He enjoys playing drums and has a reputation for knowing how to have a good time. He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who expertly poaches a silken cod and enjoys picking out china, but he is. He’ also been named “one of the top chefs to watch in the country” by both John Mariani of Esquire Magazine and Corby Kummer of Boston Magazine. He was also named one of Food & Wine‘s Ten Best New Chefs in 2004.

For Orfaly, cooking was originally a simple means to an end. A musician from his adolescence, he became a short order cook as a teen to pay for his drum equipment. By the end of high school, however, he was still cooking and his interest in the drums was waning. He developed alongside Chefs Todd English and Barbara Lynch in Boston and Joachim Splichal and Nancy Silverton in Los Angeles.

Orfaly impressed patrons and food critics with his French-driven, internationally influenced cuisine at Pigalle, which opened in Boston’s Theater District in 2000. He displayed his versatility, opening Italian-leaning Marco in Boston’s historic North End and Peking Tom’s, an Asian-influenced restaurant in Downtown Crossing. His love of music and cooking came together at The Beehive, where he oversaw culinary operations. In early 2016 he revisited his love of Asian fusion fare, consulting on the menu at Brighton’s Jade Monkey.

Now as Culinary Director of the Navy Yard Hospitality Group, he oversees operations at ReelHouse in East Boston. His menu features innovative twists on classic concepts with an emphasis on sustainable line-caught seafood.