Kuroge Wagyu beef, Elvis burgers, and freshly foraged mushrooms? This Chef of Steel knows you’ll take the Bait

Aaron Dorman

Chef of Steel : Scot Hinkel

Title: Owner and chef at The Bait Shop

Location : 5308 Calumet Ave, Valparaiso, IN 46383

The Northwest Indiana culinary scene includes chefs who are pastors, multi-generational pizza purveyors, and at least one who brought gourmet sensibilities to a strip club.

But Scot Hinkel is the first chef we’ve interviewed who does his own foraging.

Before he mans his kitchen like a lone wolf at The Bait Shop, Hinkel goes out to an undisclosed location and seeks ramps and mushrooms, like yellow oyster or chicken of the woods.

Hinkel and his wife Drea refused to divulge where precisely they go to find these local treasures — “chicken in the woods is in the woods,” Hinkel hints — and there’s no word on if they have a secret truffle pig (or stole one fr