Daniel Patterson Announces Plans To Step Down As Executive Chef Of Coi

Daniel Patterson, the acclaimed San Francisco chef whose latest project is LocoL — the innovative, sustainably sourced fast food venture created with Los Angeles chef Roy Choi — has announced plans to step back from his executive chef position at Coi, his fine-dining restaurant of nearly a decade.

"I have cherished every moment in the kitchen over the last nine and a half years," Patterson wrote in a statement on Coi's website. "I am deeply appreciative of our incredible staff, whose hard work and dedication helped make the restaurant what it is today. I am equally grateful for our customers, who put their faith in a new restaurant next to a strip club, in a part of town more commonly associated with drunken bar fights than with good food.

"However, I have concluded that the role of executive chef is simply too much to manage with two small children, and a wife who has watched me work 90-hour weeks year after year and would like to have me around a little more. Further, I have become increasingly invested in my work on LocoL, my joint venture with the talented and wonderful Roy Choi."

In his place, Patterson has appointed Matthew Kirkley, who will take on the role beginning in January 2016. Kirkley was previously the chef at L20, where he earned two Michelin stars. "Judging from the food he cooked for me recently, it is likely that he will achieve a third," Patterson wrote.