Dean Max

DJM Restaurants - Deerfield Beach, FL

Dean James Max is the chef owner of DJM Restaurants which specializes in farm to table food and beverage concepts for many hotel brands such as the Ritz Carlton, Marriott, Renaissance hotels as well as a variety of independent restaurants and modern fast casuals. Max has been in the food industry all his life where he started on his families small produce farm learning to grow vegetables at a young age, then getting his degree in business marketing, and after studying in Florence, Italy to return to a culinary internship with Ritz Carlton.

Over the last 30 years, he has opened dozens of restaurants concepts and won all kinds of culinary awards from James Beard best chef nominations, to King of American Seafood, and wrote two cookbooks in the down time including A Life by the Sea. Currently the company operates the Brasserie and other outlets in Cricket Squared, located in Georgetown, Grand Cayman. The property there consists of an up-scale restaurant, market, juice bar, BBQ concept, bakery and event space. DJM also works on all food and beverage at Pink Sands Resort in Harbor Island Bahamas. DJM has created brands like the award winning 3030 Ocean restaurant in Fort Lauderdale, Even Keel Restaurant, James Republic, Blue Ocean Poke, Cultivar Mexican Kitchen, Latitude 41, AMP 150, Parallel Post, Watertable, and reinvented the Cheeca Lodge Resort in Islamorada. All of DJM restaurants are all based around farm to table style and are deeply involved in grass roots marketing programs that develop them as destination locations.

Dean Max has also produced an entourage of culinary masters who came up under him and lives proud in his legacy of culinary development of Food & Wine Magazine Best Chef winners, Top Chef winners, Hells Kitchen finalists, and successful restaurant leaders.