About

Philip Dorwart

Founder, Executive Chef

Philip has been cooking in the Twin Cities since the early 90s. He started at a technical college, where an instructor pulled him aside midway through the semester and told him plainly: you are too good to be here. That sent him on a path that would shape everything that followed.

He cooked his way through some of the most respected kitchens in the city, including Lucia's, where he showed up for every shift they called, learning to read a room as much as a menu. He went on to own and operate Table of Contents and Red Fish, Blue, building a reputation for food that was technically rigorous, seasonally grounded, and made with the kind of care that guests could taste without being able to explain why.

He hosted a radio show. He wrote for Minneapolis St. Paul Magazine. He showed up at dinner parties in people's homes and cooked at the table, telling the story of what was on the plate while he finished it. That directness, the chef who was in the room with you, never behind a door, became the foundation of what Create would become.

In 2006, he and Desiree opened Create in Northeast Minneapolis. Twenty years in, Philip still designs every menu. He is still in the kitchen.

Desiree Dorwart

Founder, Chef & COO

Before joining Create full time, Desiree spent 14 years teaching culinary arts, training the next generation of chefs with the same directness and high standards the work demands. When the Institute closed, she came back to the kitchen she and Philip had built together.

Today she leads Kitchen Coalition, Create's community food program, which delivers hot meals in South Minneapolis every week. The same kitchen that prepares tasting menus for Fortune 500 clients feeds people who are asking for the basics. That range is not a contradiction. It's exactly what Create has always been.