Will Goldfarb

When Goldfarb met his wife Maria while he was with Paul Liebrandt at Papillon, she encouraged him to put up his own restaurant, with the two conceptualizing what would soon become the Room4Dessert idea turned into reality, which opened in 2006. The restaurant received critical acclaim that led to a James Beard nomination for Goldfarb as Best Pastry Chef in America. When the restaurant closed after two years due to a disagreement with partners, the couple decided to move the restaurant to Bali, which however got delayed due to Goldfarb's cancer diagnosis followed by surgery and radiation therapy. In Bali, while still unable to work fully, Goldfarb first worked on the pastry programs at KU DÉ TA in Seminyak. Finally, in 2014, with a meager budget, he opened his new Room4Dessert, a 100 square-meter venue in the middle of what would later grow to a 3,000 square-meter garden with 300 varieties of plants and 100 types of trees tied to Goldfarb's dessert recipes.

Goldfarb started working in restaurants at age 15, doing everything from being a valet parking staff to being a busboy, waiter, bartender, food runner, and host. Instead of proceeding to law school after finishing college at Duke University, he opted to go to Paris where he studied pastry cooking at Le Cordon Bleu while working at night. After being exhausted by this routine, he went back to New York City and worked with someone who put up large gastronomic events. He later decided to go back to Europe, however, and landed a six-month apprenticeship post in Florence. Later, he was hired as a family chef in the French Riviera. In 1999, inspired by the book The Flavors of the Mediterranean by Ferran Adrià, Goldfarb worked for El Bulli, where he came across apprentice chefs who would later make big names for themselves in the industry, namely Massimo Bottura, René Redzepi, and Grant Achatz, and where he worked side by side with Ferran's brother, Albert Adrià.

Will Goldfarb (born June 24, 1975, in Port Washington, New York, US) is a Bali, Indonesia-based American pastry chef who was named The World's Best Pastry Chef in Cacao Barry's The World's Best 50 Restaurants 2021 and considered one of the pioneers of the dessert-only tasting menu. Originally from Wallington, New York, Goldfarb owns with his wife Maria the Ubud, Bali, Indonesia-based restaurant and cocktail bar Room4Dessert. Goldfarb is one of the four pastry chefs featured in the 2018 Netflix series Chef's Table: Pastry, along with Jordi Roca of El Celler de Can Roca, Sicilian gelato maker Corrado Assenza, and Christina Tosi of David Chang's Momofuku Milk Bar chain.