Top Chef - Chicago!

And so it begins.

Following are the 16 new "Top Chef: Chicago" chef'testants (Bios enclosed):

-Andrew, 30 - Hometown: Fort Lauderdale, FL; Resides in N.Y.
-Antonia, 31 - Hometown/Resides in: Los Angeles, CA
-Dale, 29 - Hometown: Chicago, IL; Resides in N.Y.
-Erik, 38 - Hometown: Chappaqua, NY; Resides in San Francisco, CA
-Jennifer, 35 - Hometown: Brooklyn, NY; Resides in San Francisco, CA
-Lisa, 27 – Hometown: Toronto, Canada; Resides in N.Y.
-Manuel, 33 - Hometown: Laredo, TX; Resides in N.Y.
-Mark, 29 - Hometown: Invercargill, New Zealand; Resides in N.Y.
-Nikki, 35 - Hometown/Resides in: N.Y.
-Nimma, 26 - Hometown: Peachtree City, GA; Resides in Atlanta, GA
-Richard, 35 - Hometown: Uniondale, NY; Resides in Atlanta, GA
-Ryan, 28 - Hometown: Los Banos, CA; Resides in San Francisco, CA
-Spike, 27 – Hometown: Clearwater Beach, FL; Resides in Williamsburg, N.Y.
-Stephanie, 31 - Hometown: Stamford, CT; Resides in Chicago, IL
-Valerie, 32 - Hometown/Resides in: Chicago, IL
-Zoi, 30, - Hometown: Seattle, WA; Resides in San Francisco, CA

Your Chicago contestants:

Stephanie
AGE: 31
HOMETOWN: Stamford, Conn. – currently resides in Chicago, Ill.
CULINARY EDUCATION: University of Michigan (undergrad); Scottsdale Culinary Institute
FAVORITE SIMPLE SPRING RECIPE: Anything with green garlic such as gnocchi with clams, white asparagus and green garlic

Until recently, Stephanie was the chef/owner of Scylla in Chicago. She is now enjoying traveling, both domestically and abroad, while planning her next exciting venture. Stephanie’s biggest lure in cooking is seafood because the same fish can be cooked so many different ways – grilled, poached, cured, pan roasted – and this brings out different attributes, flavors and textures. Stephanie says in her cooking, contrasting and complementary elements are essential, but balance is non-negotiable. She has always been very driven and a bit of a risk-taker. "Once I set my mind to something, I follow through. It always has to be 110%."

Valerie
AGE: 32
HOMETOWN: Chicago, Ill.
PROFESSION: Personal Chef
CULINARY EDUCATION: Culinary Arts, Kendall College, Chicago
FAVORITE SIMPLE SPRING RECIPE: Pork pot stickers

Born and raised in Chicago, Valerie has worked her way around popular Chicago restaurants for the past nine years and is currently working as a personal chef in her native city. Valerie has a passion for traveling and loves to incorporate influences from all over the world in her cooking. She believes food is the most universal part of life and enjoys cooking cuisine with elegance and simplicity.

whiskeybent wrote:Valerie
AGE: 32
HOMETOWN: Chicago, Ill.
PROFESSION: Personal Chef
CULINARY EDUCATION: Culinary Arts, Kendall College, Chicago
FAVORITE SIMPLE SPRING RECIPE: Pork pot stickers

Born and raised in Chicago, Valerie has worked her way around popular Chicago restaurants for the past nine years and is currently working as a personal chef in her native city. Valerie has a passion for traveling and loves to incorporate influences from all over the world in her cooking. She believes food is the most universal part of life and enjoys cooking cuisine with elegance and simplicity.

Val is a friend of a friend of mine and I know she has worked at (at least) Spring and Hot Chocolate. I wish her a lot of luck and I'm looking forward to the show.

Best,
Michael

Cool. Finally a cooking show that has some revelence to my life. I will tune into this one. I think we need to start an LTH pool. Of course, gambling is illegal but I am sure we could work out some lunches or something............

Wow - four San Francisco folks!?
The oldest contestant is 38?
The older contestants in past seasons provided alot of entertainment.

What's the bio on Dale 29 from Chicago, now New York?

timidchef wrote:What's the bio on Dale 29 from Chicago, now New York?

Not the same Dale from last season:

AGE: 29
HOME TOWN: Chicago, Ill.
PROFESSION: Sous Chef at Buddakan
CULINARY EDUCATION: Culinary Institute Of America
FAVORITE SIMPLE SPRING RECIPE: Grilled matsutake mushrooms, shaved myoga, spicy truffled ponzu

Dale, a sous chef at Buddakan, one of New York’s hottest restaurants, was born and raised in Chicago, where he helped open the renowned restaurant Jean Georges Vong. In Chicago, Dale worked with distinguished chefs like Carrie Nahabedian and Shawn Mcclain. With his Filipino background, Dale focuses on Asian flavors. “I love the balance that Asian cuisine offers the salty, sweet, bitter and sour and the textures it provides for different experiences in every bite.” One of Dale’s kitchen favorites is a dry aged kobe rib eye. Dale says cooking meats is one of his favorite things to do in the kitchen and the technique that goes into properly searing and basting a rack of lamb or steak shows a lot of love. A motto that drives Dale is “expect perfection, because if you fall short your left with greatness.”

http://nbcumv.com/bravo/bio_detail.nbc/ ... dale-.html

Would anyone be opposed to be starting a pool before the season starts? Just one for fun since these are not live events.

culinary legend Anthony Bourdain

Funniest thing I've read this week. Also...

judge Ted Allen, food and wine ambassador for Robert Mondavi Private selection wines.

Oh, dear.

sundevilpeg wrote:

judge Ted Allen, food and wine ambassador for Robert Mondavi Private selection wines.

Oh, dear.

Fill me in...

sundevilpeg wrote:

culinary legend Anthony Bourdain

Funniest thing I've read this week. Also...

judge Ted Allen, food and wine ambassador for Robert Mondavi Private selection wines.

Oh, dear.

Ted Allen's not all bad, now. Compared to some other Iron Chef "judgetestants." IMO: he was the only watchable character on Queer Eye. Good for him for hooking up with(hmm...parleying his relative currency with) Mondavi.

Anyone know when the new season begins? I can't wait!

sujormik wrote:Anyone know when the new season begins? I can't wait!

See the link in the first post.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12 AT 10 PM ET/PT

(Capital letters in original.)

Darren72 wrote:

sujormik wrote:Anyone know when the new season begins? I can't wait!

See the link in the first post.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12 AT 10 PM ET/PT

(Capital letters in original.)

fanks

So, here's a random idea...would anyone be interested in a Top Chef season opener viewing get-together this coming Wednesday? Seems to me like a good occasion for like-minded food-loving folks to gather and watch/discuss over food & drink...

I know that Feed the Beast in North Center has a viewing screen in their back party room that could be a good locale. Depending on how things go, this could turn into a weekly event.

Thoughts? If there's interest, I'll volunteer myself to organize.

shoes wrote:So, here's a random idea...would anyone be interested in a Top Chef season opener viewing get-together this coming Wednesday? Seems to me like a good occasion for like-minded food-loving folks to gather and watch/discuss over food & drink...

I know that Feed the Beast in North Center has a viewing screen in their back party room that could be a good locale. Depending on how things go, this could turn into a weekly event.

Thoughts? If there's interest, I'll volunteer myself to organize.

Please post this on Events. Set it up, then if even 1 person comes you have a someone to share the experience.

Regards,

In tonight's premiere at 9 o'clock, the 16 chefs competing try to put their own spin on Chicago-style deep-dish pizza.

Here we go!

I look forward to seeing how they ruin deep-dish.

Sun-Times wrote:Colicchio's dining experiences were limited to breakfast, brunch and lunch at places including Blackbird, LuLu's and Topolobampo.

I find it interesting that Lulu's is included in this list. I haven't been there in several years, but I guess I have to get back to their Davis Street location soon.

Lulu's
804 Davis St.
Evanston
(847) 869-4343

Sun-Times wrote:
Colicchio's dining experiences were limited to breakfast, brunch and lunch at places including Blackbird, LuLu's and Topolobampo.

I find it interesting that Lulu's is included in this list. I haven't been there in several years, but I guess I have to get back to their Davis Street location soon.

You know...considering that list -- I'm betting that he ate at Lula Cafe instead of Lulu's....

I'd put $10 down on that.

Although Lulu's is fun...

Are you doubting the fact-checkers at the Sun-Times?

Does that make me a bad guy?????

Although...are there any fact checkers LEFT at the Sun-Times?

Okay... not knowing what chicken piccata is, bad. Very bad.

But mayonnaise?!? How do you not know what goes into mayonnaise?!?

At the beginning of the show, I dubbed him the "Clay" of this season. Was he making that mayonnaise in a wine chiller?

Personally, I would have booted the guy who thought that mashed potatoes were a good base for his souffle.

But bread crumbs on the chicken in a piccata? That's bad, too.

The city looked great, though.

Dmnkly wrote:But mayonnaise?!? How do you not know what goes into mayonnaise?!?

Gah, I was totally flabbergasted by that. And then he was all impressed with himself at judging, making a point of mentioning the fact that he'd MADE THE MAYONNAISE. Uh. Wow?

Way to go homegirl Stephanie !

I'm so sick of all the molecular gastronomy dorks. It's so 2005.

Andrew is just a flat out dick.

I missed tonights episode but I can't wait for the rest. I worked at the filming site of at least one episode of this series (Calihan Catering, a block from Kendall College).

Watched TC for the first time tonight. Strange.
More fun than The Next Iron Chef, less than Project Runway.
16 contestants seems like way too many -- no time to focus on the characters or the food.

I'm already sick of the stuck-up NY woman, and the expletive-spitting dude with the crab cakes (his should have been better though, having started with the right crab).

Hopefully, more time can be spent on the prep, cooking and judging when the whittle the contestants down a bit. The pizza judging was so quick it was pretty tough to even guess what might have been tasty or vile (the peach was intriguing, actually). Too many chefs used too many ingredients. Even pan pizza should be elemental.

Lastly... I was under the impression that Rocco and Tony couldn't exist in the same space-time continuum.

JoelF wrote:Hopefully, more time can be spent on the prep, cooking and judging when the whittle the contestants down a bit.

As the contestants get whittled, there is more time spent of that. . . the beginning episodes are kind of a whirlwind.

JoelF wrote:Lastly... I was under the impression that Rocco and Tony couldn't exist in the same space-time continuum.

Note that they were seated on opposite end of the judge's table.

For me, Top Chef is just about equal to Project Runway in terms of fun although I'd agree that there are way more interesting personalities on Project Runway.

I've never watched this show, but caught the second half of last night's, which I guess was the first of the Chicago season. If you guys could fill me in on a couple of things, I'd appreciate it.

First, reading from the top of this thread, I see that only a few of the chefs have a Chicago connection. What makes this season Top Chef Chicago, then? This is not a complaint disguised as a question, it's a question--I'd like to understand what the show purports to be about, and why it travels from place to place if not to feature the chefs of the locations it travels to. I will probably be watching more episodes and would like to understand what I'm watching.

Second, was the chef who was eliminated last night (the woman who made everything too salty--as far as I could tell she was the only one eliminated) one of the Chicago chefs? I didn't catch her name.

Thanks!

riddlemay - It is Top Chef Chicago because it was filmed in Chicago. I think the location might have more to do with how they might structure challenges vs where the chefs are from. In Miami they had episodes based on feeding a Telemundo TV crew/show (cooking latin foods), or they had to run a late night food cart (after hours/party food). In Chicago they started with deep dish pizza, which I'm sure had a few of you Chicago folks groaning. The girl who was eliminated last night was not from Chicago.

After last nights episode I'm not sure what to think of this round of contestants.

Some of them used so much dough, do they not have the basic knowledge to know that a yeast dough is going to rise a bit in the oven, or at least that it shouldn't be 3 inches thick when you start.

The guy not knowing how to make mayonnaise also shocked me. Although I just started making it myself at home, I always knew what in it. Also, I'm not on a show competing for a title and trying to prove how great I am. Outside of not knowing how to make mayo, I kind of liked that guy.

What's with "molecular gastronomy" guys and bad hair cuts? Although it does seem that he might be the most technically proficient in the kitchen, which seems to go hand in hand with being into "molecular gastronomy".

You know...considering that list -- I'm betting that he ate at Lula Cafe instead of Lulu's....

I'd put $10 down on that.

Although Lulu's is fun...

Per the article in Red Eye yesterday, it was stated as "Cafe Lula", and noted that Tom Colicchio enjoyed an "amazing, amazing brunch". I agree, I don't think it was Lulu's, which I thought was odd as well. Red Eye still managed to mangle the correct name of the restaurant, but per the context, I do think it was our lovely eclectic spot in Logan Square.

Tom also mentioned how filming constraints really left a hole in typical evening dining adventures, but that he enjoyed breakfasts/lunches/brunches as much as he was able....

Actually, I was able to find the link with the quotes from Tom & Padma:
Red Eye quotes:

"One of the best meals I had … was at Cafe Lula ... I had just an amazing, amazing brunch there." - COLICCHIO ON HIS MOST SURPRISING MEAL IN CHICAGO