Eric Dale
Pastry Chef

A Denver native, Eric Dale’s earliest culinary inspiration came from his grandmother. Although she was traditional with her thinking that men had no place in the kitchen, she left all of her recipes to Eric when she passed away. As a result, many of the elegant desserts he creates at Rioja are reinterpretations of the comforting treats he enjoyed as a kid. 

Not that becoming a pastry chef was always Dale’s dream. He was more interested in theatre than food and attended California State University in Long Beach to study costume design. After encountering a financial roadblock, Dale returned to Denver and enrolled in the Art Institute of Colorado’s fashion design program while supporting himself by working for a local catering company. “I mixed cake and muffin batter for eight hours a day and loved every minute of it,” he recalls. He did not, however, have the same enthusiasm for his studies.

Dale left the Art Institute and joined the Denver Center Theatre Company as a costume design apprentice yet was constantly baking in his spare time. He became so accomplished that when his friends started getting married, they insisted that Eric bake their wedding cakes. 

In 2002, when Johnson & Wales University’s Denver campus introduced its Baking & Pastry Arts program, Dale entered the inaugural class and graduated with a 4.0 average in 2004. He was named Student of the Year by the American Culinary Federation of Colorado Chefs Association, which, incidentally, also honored Rioja chef/co-owner Jennifer Jasinski as Chef of the Year at the same awards banquet. 

Dale apprenticed at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, CO, where he created and plated an entirely new dessert menu. In 2005, the young chef returned to Johnson & Wales for additional study, but missed the excitement of a professional pastry kitchen. When a baking position at Rioja became available, Dale immediately placed a call to inquire about the position and landed the job. When the restaurant’s Pastry Chef departed, Dale was promoted to that position after only four months in the kitchen. 

Dale’s culinary philosophy remains grounded in the comfort food he enjoyed courtesy of his grandmother. While he enhances those concepts with sophisticated ingredients and flair, his approach remains straightforward. He prefers to use organic, market-fresh ingredients, and his plating reflects an overall approach that balances elegance with approachability. “I feel every individual ingredient should be heightened in a dessert,” he explains. “It’s important to let every component shine so the sum of the parts is greater than the whole.” 

An avid cyclist, Dale lives in Denver with his partner and their Corgi, Shilo.