Results tagged “topchef”

Heyyyy, Top Chef Fans! We're getting ready to liveblog the finale of Top Chef Masters. Our esteemed Editor is watching at Frontera with Chef Bayless along with Benjy Lipsman. We'll be getting updates from him on what's going on there, too. Here's his first:

Quickfire. Oooo, yes! The palate test! Each chef will be blindfolded and will taste 20 ingredients which they are then asked to identify. Each chef will receive stars relative to the number they identified correctly. Let's touch on some notables: Michael thinks hoisin sauce has a texture unlike anything he's ever put in his mouth before. He thinks marscarpone is sour cream. Fortunately, he's able to identify oregano. Hubert does well until he identifies poppadom as potato chips. We have to say...it looks like they went easy on these contestants compared to our regular group of contestants. Some of the ingredients include: corn, peanut butter, ketchup, and maple syrup. This makes us want to do our own blindfold taste test. Now here's a kicker. Rick Bayless knocks back some hoisin sauce like it's a shot of vodka and says, "Ranch salad dressing." No lie, folks. He identifies mango as plum. Anita blanks on hoisin. Heh. She pegs dashi, though. Here they are in order of how they did and the number of stars they received: Michael (7) - 5 stars. Rick (6) Anita (6) - each get 4 stars. Hubert (5) - 3.5 stars.

Last week, Suzanne Tracht was sent home, leaving to compete this week: Chef Hubert Keller, Chef Michael Chiarello, Chef Anita Lo, Chef Art Smith, and Chef Rick Bayless. The chefs walk into the kitchen and a stack of cheeseburgers and fries on a table. Choi wastes no time and we begin the Quickfire.

                    

With a huge hand clutching a glass of Austrian sparkling wine, David Cleverdon slowly gestured across the seemingly endless verdancy surrounding us like a compass searching for True North and said, "You're catching us at the beginning of a transition. Tomorrow, trucks will be coming to the farm and tearing up the land as we start laying the ground work for the future of Kinnikinnick Farm."

If you were one of the many fans of Fabio Viviani, contestant on Top Chef Season 5, you can attend a cooking demonstration and book signing at Fox & Obel tomorrow. Fabio is the Executive Chef and owner of Café Firenze Italian Restaurant in Southern California. Head here to learn more about the event and here to reserve your spot.

Another week, another Top Chef Masters. First up, we meet Jonathan Waxman who, we learn, trained Bobby Flay. We find Bobby Flay insufferable so we're curious to see what this guy is like. Roy Yamaguchi enters and Gail tells us that he is the first ever James Beard award winner. Art Smith of Table 52 enters. We try to work up some excitement at Chicago being represented. Finally, Michael Cimarusti joins the gang. He's a seafood chef and the youngin' of the crowd. (Allow us to explain why we've been calling these Chefs by their first name: Bravo labels them that way and it is easier.)

What are the chances that Top Chef Masters suddenly became interesting this week? Let's find out. Tonight we have Wilo Benet from San Juan (who looks better with that goatee), Rick Bayless from Chicago, Cindy Pawlcyn from Napa, and Ludo Lefebvre from L.A. As soon as we see judge James Oseland (Editor-in-chief of Saveur Magazine) who gives us some background on Pawlcyn, we remember where we first saw him. He was a judge on Iron Chef and always spoke with food in his mouth, which kept dribbling out. We don't care. We sort of love him. You know why? Because he has that nerdy-ass charm our Korean mother always told us was such a good thing. What can we say. Some shit sticks better than others.

Hellur, kiddehs. We're back to recap our flav-o-rite Bravo show. We're not going to lie. The loss of Padma breaks our heart a little. Good thing we're fickle enough to mend in the first 30 seconds of the show. Let's get to it.

After going into Stephanie Izard overload recapping "Top Chef: Chicago" we decided to sit out recapping "TC5". Well, and we had a very strong feeling Radhika Desai wasn't going to win.

With the ongoing success of "Top Chef," it was only a matter of time before Bravo decided that they would expand the franchise by opening up the competition to already established chefs. The idea for this has been in the works for close to a year.

Another Monday means it's time to piece together another Chicagoist Podcast. Away we go.

We haven't really been keeping track of the latest incarnation of Bravo's Top Chef here on the site, but many of us have still been watching the show. As tonight's finale airs, Chicagoist Foodie L. Stolpman is going to be joining a host of other local food gurus for a live blog of the finale over at Time Out Chicago. Stolpman will be joining our friend Helen Rosner of MenuPages as well as Andie Thomalla from Gapers Block, HungryMag.com’s Michael Nagrant, Lockwood chef Phillip Foss, and LTHForum’s Ron Kaplan a.k.a. Ronni Suburban.

Hosting ad-hoc soup kitchens have been all the rage this winter. From 1-4 p.m. Sunday at Custom House (500 S. Dearborn, 312-523-0020) the big boys get in on the act.

Looks like we aren't the only ones diving into podcasting. Our pals at Serious Eats have an interview with Stephanie Izard posted where she offers more details on the Drunken Goat (she wants to offer tripe and lots of charcuterie), breaks bad on facebook ("543 friend requests?"), and talks about her recent trip to Madrid.

While it's now wise to take a wait-and-see approach to the opening of Dale Levitski's long-planned West Loop outpost Town and Country, the "Top Chef 3" runner-up is also jumped on the supper club bandwagon. Levitski is cooking a weekly dinner at Relax Lounge (1450 W. Chicago Ave.) from 7-9 p.m. Thursdays. For $25, it's worth a shot. [UrbanDaddy]

Between now and Wednesday, we're counting down the top 8 local stories that captivated us in 2008.

We hope you've gotten a chance to read our follow-up interview with Stephanie Izard from Friday (Karl has a "Chicagoist Re-Grills" with Dale Levitski we're posting in a bit). Among the many items we asked of Izard was for a recipe for National Vegan Month.

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.

Since the Sun-Times won't say it, we will: We call bullshit, Dan Schmitt. Schmitt is the producer who's responsible for putting Top Chef Stephanie Izard's face on a logo for a public access show from Tony Peraica's campaign called, "What's COOKing With The Republicans?" Not only is it the weakest and most drawn out use of a pun for political purposes in recent memory, but it's just not possible that you would create a "cooking" show and use Izard's visage - and then claim you had no idea who she was. Especially when you took her likeness from a Top Chef promo photo.

      

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.

Make sure you check out Chuck's entry on Chicago Gourmet and check back over the weekend to hear how this weekend's largest event is going!

Lots of upcoming events in September. Get out those calendars and start making your reservations for some good food and drink.

If, as everyone keeps saying, celebrity chefs are the new rock stars, then food groupies should keep an eye out for Marcus Samuelsson in the upcoming days. Tipster "youattal" wrote that the Swedish superstar, Aquavit owner and Macy's (née Marshall Field's) Culinary Council member is in town today training staff for tomorrow's opening of Marc Burger.

Bleeding Heart Bakery has created a cupcake in honor of "Top Chef" winner Stephanie Izard. Dubbed "The Stephanie" and viewable at Bleeding Heart's flickr stream. It's an organic ricotta poundcake cupcake with organic caramelized pineapple jam and bananas and organic lime frosting. This cupcake's as cute as Izard.

For those of you who were following along with our live blog of the "Top Chef Chicago" finale the other night, we're also guessing you had one eye on the tube, as well.

Welcome to the Top Chef Chicago Finale which we shall be live blogging.

Tonight we'll find out if Stephanie Izard wins the title of "Top Chef" in part 2 of the season finale.

Welcome to Puerto Rico, Top Chef fans!

Like Hawk Harrelson with the White Sox, we've been unabashed homers for Stephanie Izard to win "Top Chef Chicago" here at Chicagoist pretty much since we heard that she was taking part in the show. Her performance thus far — winner of one quickfire challenge and four elimination challenges — combined with an ebullient personality has her poised as both the front runner and fan favorite to win the competition.

And then there were four.