Felipe Rojas-Lombardi  Felipe Rojas-Lombardi (died September 10, 1991) was a Peruvian-American chef whose Spanish and Caribbean influences have impacted America's haute cuisine. An assistant to James Beard's Greenwich Village cooking school, he was the founding chef of Dean & Deluca gourmet food store. In 1976, he was named America’s Bicentennial chef. He was featured on a PBS series on “New York’s Master Chefs” and is credited with bringing the concept of tapas to America. He authored "Soup, Beautiful Soup" and "South American Kitchen". Rojas-Lombardi died of heart failure in New York City on September 10, 1991. In 2014, the United States Postal Service honored him with a Celebrity Chefs stamp.