The CES Team

Danny Boylen, II – Chef/Owner

If his mother is to be believed, Danny started his culinary career at age four by making a Mother’s Day breakfast in bed. While he can be described as an auto-didactic chef, some of his kitchen/management positions have been with 1910 Restaurant, Butterfield 9, Bossa Bistro & Lounge, and Notti Bianchi (while at Notti Bianchi he won the Washington Restaurant Association RAMMY Award for manager of the year.) He is also a Sommelier, an avid cigar smoker, jazz lover, and a huge fan of all things pork.

Celeste Goodspeed – Business Manager

Celeste is a life long lover of food (please don’t call her a “Foodie”, that label makes her kinda stabby.) She joined Cogito Ergo Sauté in early 2012 to manage the scheduling, financials, marketing, and to generally keep the boss in-line. While Celeste will occasionally appear at events, her primary role will be behind the scenes working to make things easier for clients and Danny. She has worked in restaurants and law firms in her native London, and adopted hometown, Washington, DC. Though the restaurant work was primarily to fund her wine and food habits while studying to be a barrister, Celeste has returned to the culinary world after taking a break from the law to raise twin boys who love to help make guacamole and are the center of her world.

Genevieve Billia – Senior Culinary Associate

As a food enthusiast who entered the culinary world late in the career game, Genevieve has always enjoyed cooking for herself and her friends. She’s never met a party that she wouldn’t like to throw. A native of the Garden State, she has lived in New York, Virginia, Maryland, and the greatest city in the world, Chicago, IL (Danny strongly disagrees with this assertion.) Now, a permanent fixture in Washington, DC she plies her day time trade, public relations, if only to revel in her work in the kitchen during her nights and weekends. When not in the kitchen, you can find her attending a Caps, Nats, or Hoyas game with a side of Chicago Bears football during the fall. An equal-opportunity omnivore, Genevieve loves all colors of the Asian food rainbow, a well-cooked medium-rare steak, pizza piled high with almost any vegetable, and a good bourbon.

Mia Rommel – Culinary Associate

An avid endurance athlete, Mia believes that the food you eat should not only be real, but delicious – after all, she eats a lot of it. Mia spends her daylight hours as an account executive for a strategy firm, her evenings training for her next race, and her nights in pursuit of crafting the perfect recovery meal (in first place is Danny’s pork bolognese.) Texas born, she loves nothing more than a good dinner party with great company and a cold beer. You can win her heart with a good IPA, an authentic enchilada, and the freshest vegetable at the farmer’s market.