In an essay for the Daily Meal, a national food and drink publication, Matthew Mytro offers a personal look at his journey to becoming chef-partner at Flour Restaurant.

"If you’d asked me a few years ago, I would have told you that the moment I became a chef was when I put on my crispy white chef’s jacket with my name coupled with ‘executive chef’ at a now-defunct Cleveland restaurant. Looking back, not only was I in fact not a chef, but I really had no idea what I was doing. My chef’s jacket today is blank. The jacket -- or even the title -- does not define me. An inscribed jacket can make you too comfortable. And comfort is a chef’s worst enemy.”

Mytro recalls the precise moment in his life that he knew he wanted to become a chef.

“I was reading Kitchen Confidential on the bus heading home and happened to look up to see a bunch of chefs standing outside in their jackets, talking and smoking. It was this perfect trifecta of events and I was sold. I wanted this life -- or rather, the life I perceived those chefs to have.”

Ultimately, he landed at Flour in Moreland Hills, where he currently is chef and partner.

“I made my way to Flour where I met chef Paul Minnillo, a very well-respected, old school chef. We had instant chemistry. He taught me to take a step back and really focus on the details. He’s made me a better man and a much better chef.”

“I have no regrets about not going to culinary school and think my training and type of education can stack up to any. I learned long ago that school in the traditional sense does not make someone a chef. Discipline, passion, integrity, camaraderie and literally doing whatever it takes, no matter how long you’ve been sporting the coat… That is what makes a chef a chef.”

Read the rest of his recipe for success here.