Pastry Chef Instructor

The art of the sweet is what drives Chef Flemming Pederson in his career as both a chef and instructor. A near four-decade veteran of the baking and pastry industry, Chef Pedersen seeks to pass his knowledge of this specialized art to his students at The Culinary Institute of Las Vegas, a division of The Art Institute of Las Vegas.

Born in Denmark, Chef Flemming Pedersen began his culinary career as an apprentice in a retail bakery. He graduated from the Danish Baking Laug and, after a year of working in Denmark, immigrated to the United States in 1976. He started in the U.S. as a baker and bench man for the Midnight Sun Bakery in Atlanta, Georgia. In three years time, he progressed to the position of Executive Pastry Chef and moved to Florida where he studied and practiced the Jewish tradition of pastries and bread making.

The Tropicana Hotel beckoned Pedersen to Las Vegas in 1980 to serve as Executive Pastry Chef, responsible for the development of showpiece and recipe development, production, quality food costs, training and payroll. Since that time, he has worked in ten of the area’s better known hotels and casinos and had the opportunity to work with some of the world’s greatest chefs. The Tropicana Hotel, Showboat Hotel, Imperial Palace Hotel and the Golden Nugget Hotel, one of the few four star hotels in Las Vegas, all serve as the backdrop for his entertaining stories about the evolution of food and celebrity in Las Vegas. 

Chef Pederson’s specialties include showpieces and cake decorations created from sugar and chocolate.