Results tagged “chefs”

Tickets are still available for tomorrow night's Celebrity Chef Ball to Benefit Meals on Wheels Chicago. the annual benefit, held at Macy's on State Street, brings together 80 of the best chefs in the city in a culinary hoedown of epic proportions

Cities like New York, Philadelphia, Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles are lauded for their street food scenes, and rightly so. Here in Chicago we have the Maxwell Street Market, the tamale men, sno cones, elotes, a couple vendors at farmers markets and the stray hot dog cart. Otherwise what constitutes street food here is sorely lacking. As with most things, city ordinances restrict what food carts and trucks can and cannot do, limiting their presence to not much more than roach coaches serving warmed and pre-cooked product.

                   

Today we're going to run some more photos of Chicago Gourmet that we didn't run in our recap of the festival yesterday. It's a combination of chef shots, action shots from demos and seminars, and good ol' food pr0n. Enjoy and, if you have photos of the event on flickr, be sure to tag them with "chicagoist" so that they show up on the "Chicagoist Photos" pool..

                

Now this is how a food and wine festival should operate!

A couple weeks back a friend purchased Chicago Gourmet tickets via the half-price special Groupon offered. She asked for advice to prepare for the festival. We told her to pack a lunch.

• Protestors from the company who helped build out Rick Bayless's XOCO set up shop outside the white-hot torta shop yesterday. [Grub Street Chi]
• Monica Eng reports that Sprout at 1417 W, Fullerton, is set to open October 3 as an all-organic restaurant. Get this: entrees are topping out at $120. Maybe owner Satko Ibrahimovic should check out Crust to get an idea of fair pricing for organic food. [The Stew]
• More non-Yelp reviews of Nana are coming in. This one is a positive review from David Hammond. [Reader]

I am a chef who likes to cook more than proliferate and manage restaurants. That’s why Frontera Grill, Topolobampo and, now, Xoco are all together. I can slide from one kitchen to another, tasting and training and coaching and cooking. Cooking is why I became a chef, and I never want to get too far from it.

Rick Bayless has consistently been in the news in recent weeks. First, there was his winning Top Chef Masters and earning a $100,000 check to his Frontera Farmer Foundation. After two years of planning, today Bayless opens XOCO (449 N. Clark St.). Inspired by the legendary Churreria El Moro in Mexico City, XOCO is Bayless's tribute to Mexican street food: tortas, hearty soups, churros and chocolate. Anticipation among food media and foodies, not to mention the pared down, simple menu, has primed XOCO to be the Publican of 2009.

• Growing Home, Inc., which in our humble opinion does the Lord's Work with its organically certified urban farms in Englewood, is facing a $100,000 funding gap. If you've ever had their greens or other produce, please give what you can. [Inbox]
• The Green Chicago Restaurant Co-op launched a "Guaranteed Green" initiative that will help diners find and support the restaurants that "that take significant steps toward protecting the environment." on hand for the launch were Rick Bayless, Ina Pinkney, and Helen Cameron of Uncommon Ground, which also received the Co-op's first honors. [Inbox, again]
• "Are the Peaches Any Good?" Next time, ask a stupid question. [Fruit Slinger]

• Behold the outfit Graham Elliot Bowles wore while guest bartending at Pops for champagne Monday. He talks about it briefly in an interview. [W magazine]
• A nonbinding "green food resolution" proposed by Alderman Margaret Laurino includes boilerplate from Food Sanctuary, one of the proponents of the now-overturned foie gras ban. [Martha Bayne, Food Chain]
• Minnie's in Lincoln Park is gone. [TOC]

Chefs in town sure seem generous with donating their time to charities and event. There was last week's Green City Market BBQ, of course, and this big ticket fundraiser Friday night at the Peninsula Hotel (108 E. Superior St.). Proceeds from the "Chefs and the City" event will support Vital Bridges, a non-profit providing housing, food, nutrition, case-management and prevention services to HIV-positive Chicagoans.

• North Shore Distillery's Sonja Kassebaum writes a loving profile of graham elliot beverage manager/head mixologist Lynn House (pictured). [Thinking of Drinking]
• Baconfest news: the Publican is hosting the VIP Pro cookoff the day before the fest. [Baconfestchicago.com]
• Mike Sula cheers the return of kaiseki master Seijero Matsumoto. [Food Chain]

Onward, Top Chef Soldiers. This boring season is our cross to bear. Good gravy, let's see if we'll get a spicy meatball this episode or what. Chefs include: Michael Chiarello, Rick Moonen, Nils Noren, and Lachlan M. Patterson. We learn that Rick has ADD and cooks seafood. Tom tells us about Nils Noren and we experience a sharp inhalation. He's...from Sweden.

Just a reminder that the Swan Creek Farm Online Auction ends tonight. This is your last chance to bid on a dinner for 6 prepared by some of the city's best chefs in your own home. so if you want to pool your money with five of your pals and try to win a chance to have Stephanie Izard cook you dinner, don't dawdle; the high bid on Izard is currently at $1100.

The drive to help Swan Creek Farms' George Rasmussen get a new truck continues. Last week, we mentioned in the "Friday Buffet" installment that an online auction would be held for the opportunity for a private dinner for 6 cooked by the likes of Stephanie Izard, Koren Grieveson, Paul Virant, Carol Wallack, Bill Kim, and others.

Luca Corazzina, former Executive Chef at VIVO, Prosecco and Figo in suburban Glen Ellyn, is the new executive Chef at 312 Chicago. The native of Padova landed in Chicago with his family in 1986, where they opened their own restaurant in Little Italy (Corazzina's mother is also a professional chef).

One of the big happenings fine dining fans were looking toward was the opening of Charlie Trotter's planned restaurant in the Elysian Hotel downtown. Trotter said at the time of the announcement of his deal with the Elysian in 2006, "We're very choosy about who we get into bed with, to put it bluntly."

The James Beard foundation announced their annual awards semifinalists this morning. Jean Joho and Paul Kahan are nominated for Outstanding Chef, with Joho's Everest getting a nod for Outstanding Restaurant. L2O is up for Best New Restaurant, while a staggering 11 area chefs are bidding for the title of Best Chef: Great Lakes. Included on that list are avec's Koren Grieveson, Avenue's Curtis Duffy, Suzy Crofton, and Paul Virant of Vie. Full list (in PDF format) is available here.

Last week, we took an in-depth look into L2O, with an opportunity to get Stolpman into the kitchen to photograph some of Laurent Gras' menu dishes and the preparation of them, while Jacy explained some of the design aesthetics of the restaurant (located in the space formerly occupied by Ambria).

“The Year in Review” is an apt, if overused, phrase this time of year. Coupled with what turned out to be a busy and eventful 2K8, and we’re hard pressed to distill what we found most newsworthy into a limited number of words. We can’t whittle it down to just our favorite dishes, restaurants, chefs or events. Frankly, those types of stand-alone year-end recaps bore us.

The last time we checked in with Stephanie Izard, her life was on the cusp of some serious life change thanks to her winning Top Chef: Chicago. The combination of Izard's cooking skills, willingness to face any challenge and ebullient personality made her a viewer favorite and the first woman to win the competition.

They say that the key to a man's heart is through his stomach. In our case, it's the stomach and a possible diseased liver. If you're looking for love in all the wrong places, Time Out Chicago wants to set you up with a chef, bartender or restaurateur. This is the second time TOC has tried to play matchmaker and the results from that first experience must have been so good that they're nocking an arrow in Cupid's quiver again. So if you've caught yourself stealing a quick glance at the Breakfast Queen, Wondering if that bartender at Frontera makes a good margarita at home, wanted to compare your wine knowledge with a sommelier or want to know who is the brains behind Billy Dec, now's your chance.

      

It's been said numerous times that chefs are the new rock stars. Chicago, then, could be considered one of the epicenters for the rock star chef. And they come in all forms: the arena gods (Bayless, Trotter, Achatz, McClain, Kahan); adult contemporary and classical (Smith, Gand, Arun, Tramonto, Nahabedian, Christophe David at NoMI); indie and experimental darlings (Segal, Carlson, Cantu, Bowles, Tschilds and Hammel of Lula) and world beat (Bahena, Nieto, Takashi, Gras, Garces, Shen). Using the rock star parallel, one can assume that the winners of cheffing competitions such as "Top Chef" and "Hell's Kitchen" fall into the "American Idol" realm of pop confection.

We know that Chicago is a restaurant hot spot. While out-of-town writers particularly tend to maintain the clichés (earned, mind you) of Chicago being a steak and potatoes, deep dish pizza town, out-of-town chefs know the real score.

From Crain's comes word that Le Lan Executive chef Bill Kim is leaving behind the river North French-Vietnamese outpost to open a noodle shop/casual eatery in Logan Square.

After months of spying and accounts of shooting around town, Bravo finally announced the contestants for the next season of "Top Chef" today (you can read the release here). While the lineup of chefs vying to impress Padma and company are largely from the coasts, three of the contestants have Chicago ties:

Some chef news for you: Monday both Chicago Mag's Dish and TOC broke the news that Avenues' Graham Elliot Bowles will be leaving the AAA five-diamond award winning restaurant in April to open a new restaurant in the former Harvest on Huron space (217 W. Huron).