ABOUT

How do you find your voice and express yourself when you are the youngest of seven children? The answer: You take a lifelong passion and turn it into a sweet, artistic success!

Executive Pastry Chef Padua Player, also known as SugaChef, is as dedicated as they come and he is serious about his desserts. Chef Padua has been praised for his work by Vice President Biden, featured on WE TV’s Platinum Weddings and was a competitor on Food Network’s Sweet Genius and Holiday Baking Championship. He won the 2013 Capital Food Fight’s High Stakes Cake Battle in DC, hosted by Duff Goldman. Following that success, he returned in 2014 and 2015 as a celebrity chef judge and appeared on Cooking Channel’s Cake Hunters in 2018. Television called on his sweet culinary skills once again and he appeared on CHOPPED Sweets on Food Network in 2020. Chef Padua has his own line of gourmet desserts and has provided his sweet delicacies to countless celebrity clientele.

Chef Padua also lends his time and pastry talents to DC Central Kitchen. They train unemployed adults for culinary careers, serving healthy school meals, while rebuilding urban food systems through social enterprise. Chef Padua has worked with planning Best Buddies International’s Life is Sweet event.They are an organization dedicated to establishing a global volunteer movement. They create opportunities for one-to-one friendships, integrated employment and leadership development for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). He has also been a celebrity chef judge and served on the planning committee for Central Union Mission’s HeArt & Sole charity event, that serves the homeless population in the DC Metro area.​