Dave Foss has worked in hospitality for over 20 years in virtually every facet of the food and beverage industry, and is currently the Co-Founder and Operating Partner at LaLou, a beloved wine bar and restaurant in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. His passion for beverage led him to manage a series of programs on the West Coast, both at the Mondrian Hotel and later at Fairfax Partners Restaurant Group, overseeing four properties in the Los Angeles area. Upon returning to the East Coast, Dave went on to oversee the beverage programs at the Soho and Tribeca Grand Hotels in Lower Manhattan. In 2011, he connected with then Epicurean Group co-owner Joe Campanale, who had recently opened Anfora, a wine bar in NYC's West Village. The fellow Italian wine obsessives clicked, and soon Dave began a stint at Anfora which grew into nearly a decade of wine buying for the highly regarded establishment. In 2019, Dave and Campanale joined forced to open LaLou - which Eater called "an exciting natural wine bar from some of NYC’s most underrated pros" spotlighting small production wines from Dave and Joe's favorite producers and regions around the world. In 2022, Tasting Table named LaLou one of the “20 Best Wine Bars In America.” That same year, Vinepair, the world’s largest online beverage platform, recognized Dave as part of their “Vinepair 50” — a collection of the top fifty beverage professionals in the United States.
Dave speaks on wine topics across the globe at conventions such as Vinexpo America in New York City, the Restaurant and Bar Convention in Las Vegas and most recently at the Wine2Wine Expo in Verona, Italy. Dave is an instructor at the Sommeliers Society of America, a sommelier certification body based out of New York City. He is also a Partner at Invictus Hospitality, a food and beverage consulting firm that works with hotels and restaurants across the United States. He lives in Crown Heights with his wife and children.