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Las Vegas chef Daniel Stramm uses his culinary skills to incorporate CBD in the kitchen

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Daniel Stramm
Photo: Christopher DeVargas

It’s only been about a decade since Daniel Stramm graduated from the Le Cordon Bleu culinary school, but the 28-year-old chef has already hit some high points in his career, starting with his first cook job at Mac Shack. He left Vegas briefly for an externship at Zion National Park, then found himself back in town at Akira Back’s Yellowtail at Bellagio, where he learned invaluable knife skills.

“I tell myself that I was French-trained and then refined in Japanese cuisine,” Stramm says.

From there, Stramm honed his craft at Bacchanal Buffet, before moving to Seattle for a couple of years. But the food scene in Las Vegas proved irresistible. He came back for stints at Spago’s at the Forum Shops, Sparrow + Wolf, Lupo and Wolfgang Puck’s Bar & Grill in Downtown Summerlin.

The restaurant industry can be a high-pressure environment, and for Stramm, knowing when to step away from it was just as important as gaining the experience he needed to cook in some of the most prestigious kitchens in town. Last summer, in the middle of the pandemic, he founded Hemp Fortress, a boutique CBD manufacturing company.

“Cannabis has kind of always been something that’s helped me,” says Stramm, who found relief from cannabis for his own ADHD. “So instead of opening a restaurant or trying to do something along those lines, I opened a CBD manufacturing company. … The things I learned as a chef, without that knowledge, I would not be able to do and execute the cannabis in my opinion. Because pharmaceutical is one thing, but, you know, plants are another thing, and chefs cook with plants.”

The intersection of food and cannabis continues gaining momentum. On April 20, Stramm will appear on the premiere episode of Chopped 420, a spinoff of the Food Network’s popular Chopped food competition. Contestants will be tasked with creating a full-course meal composed of an appetizer, main course and dessert, all incorporating cannabis.

“With the legality and stuff like that, they couldn’t actually put it on television, so they were able to get it onto the Discovery+ app,” Stramm says. “Last year, [the app] picked up Growing Belushi, which is all about Jim Belushi and his marijuana farm in southern Oregon. So just trying to advocate and spread awareness, which is a lot of what was spoken about during the show from each person, how it helped us in one way, incorporating it into our everyday lives,” Stramm says.

With his CBD business thriving, Stramm keeps an eye toward the future and hopes to eventually incorporate his culinary training into creating products that would allow consumers to get the benefits of cannabinoids while dining out. Though restaurants can’t legally serve food with CBD in them yet, a little ingenuity could be the ticket. Stramm says he’s currently in the R&D phase, trying to reverse-engineer products that could reach the plates of customers soon.

“If the restaurant had a tincture or something that they could put on the food, and the patron can put it on the food themselves, then they would be able to achieve the exact same thing,” Stramm says. “My personal focus is to try to bring that to life, because I am a chef and I have worked for some amazing people and I’ve learned a lot. It would be cool to bring something new to the industry.”

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