Mark
Furstenberg
Mark H. Furstenberg is the founder of The BreadLine, a baker who teaches bread-making, consults to other companies, and writes about breads and traditional foods.
In July 1990 he introduced high-quality traditional breads to Washington when he opened his first bakery, Marvelous Market. His breads were so novel and attractive to customers that they stood in long lines to buy the two loaves to which they were limited.
In 1995, Furstenberg developed the bread program for Greystone, the Napa Valley campus of the Culinary Institute of America which opened that year.
In 1996, Furstenberg sold Marvelous Market and in 1997 opened The BreadLine, a restaurant that makes bread-based foods traditional in many cultures. Since then it has been each year one of the Washington Post's favorites and one of America's Top Restaurants, according to the Zagat guide by that name. Its bakery makes bread for many of the well-known restaurants of Washington.
In 2002 Furstenberg began to consult to Thomas Keller and helped him open his bakeries in Yountville, California and in New York and Las Vegas. In 2004 Furstenberg broadened his consulting to other restaurants and food markets. He was a 2005 James Beard Foundation nominee for best chef in the Mid-Atlantic and is currently writing a book about bread in America.
Before turning a lifelong baking hobby into a profession, Furstenberg worked as a writer for ABC News and the Washington Post. He was on several Presidential commissions that studied crime and violence in America. He was, in addition, Personnel Director of the Boston Police Department and President of the Reading Tube Corporation, a large manufacturing company.
He began his career working in the White House, one of a small staff pursuing President Kennedy's interest in starting a war on poverty. His office was one block from what is now The BreadLine.