Robert McKeown - Culinary + Creative Director

Robert McKeown has dedicated his life to telling stories through food and curated experiences. His work and projects have garnered 70+ awards across multiple disciplines, from design and media to scholarship, hotels, and restaurants.

As a chef, concept developer, and operations director, McKeown has worked on 60+ hospitality projects, collaborating with influential chefs such as Michelin 3-star Jean-Georges Vongerichten (NYC), Australia’s Neil Perry (OZ), Top Chef winner Harold Dieterle, and Eater and James Beard Award winners Zak Pelaccio and Michael Reidt. He’s worked alongside architects and designers Shigeru Ban, AvroKO, and Adam Tihany and opened hotels for elite brands such as W, Shangri-La, Mandarin Oriental, Park Hyatt, and Fullerton Hotels in Singapore and many more in over a dozen countries. He currently runs Supper Club in Montreal.

As a strategist and creative director, he has executed projects for Tyler Brule’s Winkreative, Diageo, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, and most major luxury hotel brands. He is highly sought after for intelligence studies, market segmentation, and identifying market gap opportunities across real estate and hospitality sectors. McKeown’s strategic vision has been leveraged by top real estate firms Sino Land, Sun Hung Kai, West Paces, Dubai World/Isthitmar, and Central Group on their most iconic hospitality projects around the world.

As a travel editor and writer, he has been nominated as World’s Best Food Journalist, won multiple food and travel awards in the US, Americas, and Asia, and been an on-retainer editor and correspondent for influential magazines such as Travel + Leisure (US), Gourmet/Conde Nast (US), Wallpaper*, Monocle, and Gourmet Traveller (OZ). He created a story for 60 Minutes that won two Emmy Awards and consulted on CBC’s Gemini Award-winning China Rises.

Initially mentored in food studies as a grad student by the late Oxford University Professor and Erasmus Prize winner Alan Davidson, McKeown has received grants supporting his research from universities on several continents, including Oxford and Goldsmiths (UK), the CIA (US), the IACP, James Beard Foundation, and France’s IEHCA. He holds a BA from Tufts University in Art History and Media, a culinary degree from Cambridge Culinary in Boston, a Master’s from Carleton (Canada) in Journalism and Communications, and in 2025 is finishing his PhD at Goldsmiths, University of London, and an Executive MBA at Quantic.