Teamwork has multiple definitions for chefs Monique King and Paul Rosenbluh. Not only are they married to each other and the parents of three daughters, they also join forces in the kitchen to fashion Firefly Bistro's original and outstanding culinary creations. In fact, it was cooking that brought the two chefs/owners of the new South Pasadena hot spot together.

Monique King has been a chef for over a decade. After graduating from Pitzer College in Southern California, the Los Angeles native started working with two of the best in the business, Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken, at City in 1989. It was here that King began to develop her unique style and perfect her trademark Ethnic Cuisine. In 1991, King was anxious to branch out on her own and moved to Chicago. She opened Soul Kitchen in 1993. With the opening of her own restaurant, King started to attract major attention from numerous movers and shakers in the culinary world and established herself as part of Chicago's vanguard wave of young chefs who also owned their restaurants. Described by Travel and Leisure Magazine as "the Lauryn Hill of New American cuisine," King enjoyed tremendous success with her Chicago eatery and was featured in articles in Food & Wine and in Nation's Restaurant News' Culinary Currents in section in February 1999. Enter Paul Rosenbluh.

Chef Paul Rosenbluh joined the Soul Kitchen staff as sous chef in 1997, bringing with him a wealth of experience acquired at some of the country's finest dining establishments. Paul received his training at California Culinary Academy in San Francisco where his externship included work at Palomino and Cypress Club. He then moved to Austin, TX where he served as sous chef at Coyote Café until it closed.

After Rosenbluh had been working at Soul Kitchen for a short time, it didn't take long before he and King realized they had more in common than a mutual interest in cooking. They got married and had their first daughter, Jula. However, they decided to move back to Los Angeles where King grew up and Rosenbluh had some family. Feniger and Millikan heard about King's exodus from Chicago to Los Angeles and immediately hired her to be the Executive Chef at Border Grill in Santa Monica. From 2000 to 2001, King's culinary expertise wowed everyone at Border Grill--from serious foodies to dabbling diners--and she began to develop a loyal following.

Meanwhile, Paul worked at several high-end restaurants, including Granita, Joe's and Campanile, in order to get a feel for Los Angeles tastes.

In September 2001, the two welcomed their second daughter, Riley, and began to put their creative minds to work to develop their own restaurant. They joined forces with King's stepfather, actor Carl Weintraub, who is their partner and the restaurant's maitre D'. With South Pasadena as their location preference, the three waited patiently for the right spot to open. The 1009 El Centro location they found formerly housed another restaurant, Nicks. But, with some savvy design modifications to the space and tempting menus in place, King, Rosenbluh and Weintraub opened Firefly Bistro on July 18, 2002.

Since then, Firefly Bistro has been receiving critical nods from the Los Angeles Times (** Review), Los Angeles Magazine, the Los Angeles Times 2003 Top 300 Restaurants issue and Angeleno Magazine. The couple's third daughter, Quinn, was born in 2003.

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