Last evening, six local chefs competed for the Golden Fork Award at the Pitch's Taste of Kansas City event, held in the KC Live Block of the Power & Light District. Chef and restaurateur Jasper Mirabile Jr. served as emcee for the Iron Chef-style competition where the competing chefs were given a limited bag of ingredients - in this case, the items included pork, kosher salt, figs, balsamic vinegar, a tiny bit of cream, fingerling potatoes, fresh herbs (saffron, rosemary, cumin and chives), canned artichoke hearts, lentils, capers, and rice - and had 75 minutes to complete a dish to be judged by me, food blogger Emily Farris (FeedMe KC) and culinary instructor and caterer Mary Berg.
Charles d'Ablaing of Chaz on the Plaza, the Raphael Hotel's dining venue, was voted the top contender, with chef Bobby Stearns taking second-place honors and EBT Restaurant's Tate Roberts voted for third place; the other competitors were Beth Barden of Succotash; Michael Foust of the Farmhouse; and last year's winner, Jesse Vega of the Our Lady of Mercy Country Home.
Former Kansas City restaurateur Sean Cummings, best-known for his Grille on Broadway restaurant, called Fat City today to report that his friend and original chef, Lorenza "Poco" Guiterrez, the owner of the beloved Poco's on the Boulevard restaurant at 3063 Southwest Boulevard, passed away after a long illness.
"Poco wanted to live the American Dream," Cummings says, "and she did. She opened her own restaurant and ran a food-truck business. She was an amazing woman."
Fat City will report on funeral arrangements when the information becomes available.
Garrelts is one of five finalists in the Best Chef: Midwest category. He's no stranger to the contest, having been nominated five years in a row. He's up against another streak: a Minnesota juggernaut. The Twin Cities have taken the Midwest category the past three years.
The awards dinner is in New York City May 7.
"I think somebody just likes me to come to New York and spend all my money," Garrelts said. "But seriously, it's satisfying and nice to be recognized, and I'm just hopeful that the fifth time is the charm."
"I remember when I was 20 and just starting out in the restaurant business. I would look at the best new chef's article in Food + Wine each year. I always had it in the back of my mind that it would be the most amazing thing ever to be on that list. And now I have a shot at something that's always been my dream," Pollard says.
Her book is now out in paperback, and at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, February 1, she makes a tour stop at Jasper’s Restaurant (1201 West 103rd Street, 816-941-6600). A $50 ticket to the Rainy Day Books event includes a four-course dinner made by chef Jasper Mirabile Jr. and modeled on Hamilton’s recipes. Specifically: minestrone with grilled-cheese sandwiches, “Mother-in-Law’s Eggplant Parmigiano Casserole,” Prune’s chicken thighs and braised fennel, and mascarpone ice cream with salted-caramel croutons. Hamilton spoke with The Pitch recently by phone.
"I took a position as a sous chef with [chef] Debbie [Gold]. My roots are in fine dining, and I'm excited to get back to that," Eans says.
Chefs are always moving around. They find more lucrative jobs or less stressful kitchens, or they quit a restaurant to open their own. And sometimes, they get lured away by another restaurateur. That's what happened to pastry chef Blair Cobbett, who was working as the chef for Genessee Royale Bistro and also making pies for the breakfast-and-lunch-only venue. Cobbett is now the pastry chef for Justus Drugstore.
"It was very kind of Jonathan Justus to send one of his sous chefs into my kitchen to get Blair's phone number," says Todd Schulte, owner of Genessee Royale.
Justus says he had tried to hire Cobbett three years ago, but the timing wasn't right. When his last pastry chef, Mike Pisciotto, left to become a chocolatier in New Hampshire, Justus offered Cobbett the job again. She took it.
Three area chefs will be traveling outside of Missouri this autumn to show off their cooking prowess in different venues. Howard Hanna, executive chef and co-owner of the Rieger Hotel Grill & Exchange, will be one of the featured chefs of the State Room restaurant in Michigan on November 9 and 10; the event is part of the restaurant's visiting chef series. The State Room is on the campus of Michigan State University in the Kellogg Hotel & Conference Center.
Julian Restaurant's chef-owner Celina Tio will join other celebrity chefs in Los Angeles on September 21 when the American Association of Retired Persons hosts its annual Life@50+ Expo; one of the expo events is an opportunity for award-winning chefs to work together to feed the homeless community that lives in and around the downtown Los Angeles neighborhood known, historically, as Skid Row.
Fat City also checked in with Jonathan Justus, chef-owner of the celebrated Justus Drugstore in Smithville, who will be one of the featured chefs at a "gastronomic tour of American regional cuisine" at a dinner — held in honor of Steve Plotnicki's new guidebook, Opinionated About U.S. Restaurants 2011 -- scheduled for next week at Tom Colicchio's Craft restaurant in New York City.
Milk & Honey has the best I've had in KC. http://milkandhoneykc.com/
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