A FOOD & WINE Affair
Chefs Club by FOOD & WINE at The St. Regis Aspen is the first restaurant partnership of its kind.
By Amiee White Beazley
A groundbreaking partnership debuted at The St. Regis Aspen this June. Chefs Club by FOOD & WINE marks the first time the celebrated food, wine and dining magazine steps into the restaurant industry, and they’ve chosen to take the plunge with The St. Regis Aspen.
“This has been in planning stages for two years,” The St. Regis Aspen director of sales and marketing, Kristi Kavanaugh, explains. “Our ownership saw a great opportunity to partner with FOOD & WINE, and the magazine agreed. They chose Aspen, and we couldn’t be happier to be their partners in this new venture.”
A Top-Shelf Rotation
The brand new restaurant concept, which debuted June 14 – 17, brings the pages of FOOD & WINE to life by utilizing top culinary talent of the brand’s signature award—Best New Chef—as rotating culinary masters in the Chefs Club kitchen.
Every six months, a selection of four, handpicked award-winning new chefs will collaborate on a new menu and create original lunch and dinner menu items for Chefs Club by FOOD & WINE. They will bring their seasonally inspired recipes to Aspen, train The St. Regis Aspen kitchen on how to execute their dishes and, at times, cook alongside the staff during their tenure.
Since 1988, approximately 250 Best New Chefs have been named by FOOD & WINE. Among the standouts are epicurean luminaries such as Thomas Keller (’88), Tom Colicchio (’91) and Traci Des Jardins (’95). The talent, creativity and possibilities of those visiting the new restaurant in The St. Regis Aspen are plentiful.
“When we decided this would work well—using the FOOD & WINE Best New Chef concept—we knew we had something,” FOOD & WINE vice president and publisher Christina Grdovic Baltz says. “It’s never been done before, and we loved the idea of having (the Best New Chefs) coming to the St. Regis. FOOD & WINE has such deep roots in Aspen. It’s kind of our second home.”
For the opening of Chefs Club by FOOD & WINE, Best New Chefs George Mendes (’11), Alex Seidel (’10), James Lewis (’11) and Sue Zemanick (’08) have been chosen to inaugurate the menu.
New Faces and Flavors
This is, in no uncertain terms, a boon for the St. Regis and the entire town of Aspen. Every season, four of the country’s best chefs will be bringing with them new, changing flavors, ideas and points of view to seasonally inspired cuisine. Chefs Club will be a chic, exciting restaurant featuring artwork and music that works with the menus.
Seidel, who is the executive chef at the Denver restaurant Fruition, is slated to be the first chef to appear in Aspen in June. He will be creating menu items inspired by his restaurant and farm, such as a smoked sturgeon salad, duck confit sandwich with duck fat french fries and a Colorado lamb saddle with Fruition Farms ricotta gnocchi, baby artichokes, and pine nut gremolata.
“This is an opportunity to work with other great chefs,” Seidel says. “FOOD & WINE has built a reputation in seeking out great chefs from across the country, and the classic is one of the best food events that this country has. It has been really enjoyable to go to Aspen (for the classic), especially since it’s in my backyard, and be able to talk and communicate with chefs around the country to get food ideas, to see what they are doing everywhere from year to year. There is something to be learned from that any time that you can surround yourself in a circle of quality people from around the country. So for me, the new restaurant can help to offer things you can learn from. Beyond that it’s just a great opportunity to collaborate with some really great cooks.”
The St. Regis Aspen will execute these dishes with a complete staff after being trained by the Best New Chef winners themselves.
“I’ll come up to Aspen and make sure that the
standards that we set at Fruition are being followed through,” Seidel says. “It’s one thing to write a recipe, but in order for it to work, they have to see your vision and execute it on a plate.”
Magazine staff from both the editorial and business teams from FOOD & WINE will also remain “very, very involved” throughout each season, Baltz says. “Our entire staff is there every June (for the classic), and continually visiting throughout the year,” she says. “We will always have people going to the restaurant to measure quality of food and service, and make sure it lives up to the FOOD & WINE name.”
Perfect Pairing
FOOD & WINE editorial experts will also create customized wine and cocktail lists to coincide with the seasonally rotating menu. Executive wine editor Ray Isle will curate the wine list and provide food pairing suggestions, and Jim Meehan, one of the nation’s top mixologists and author of FOOD & WINE’s “Cocktail Guide,” will create a custom selection of cocktails.
“What we want is for the restaurant to kind of recreate the whole vibe or feel of FOOD & WINE,” Isle says. “One thing I do for all the recipes in the magazine—or almost all of them—is come up with pairing suggestions. We really operate under the idea that wine and food are complements to one another, and that when you have a wine that goes particularly well with a specific dish, the flavors of both are enhanced. The Best New Chefs are going to have some amazing dishes on the menu, so it’s up to me to come up with inspired partners in the world of wine for them!”
A (New) Old Friend
Opening in conjunction with the annual FOOD & WINE Classic in Aspen, Chefs Club marks the completion of the $40 million redesign of The St. Regis Aspen and will be a cornerstone of the resort’s comprehensive redesign by award-winning designer Lauren Rotett.
Completely redesigned and re-imagined, the new restaurant will be located in the former Whiskey Rocks Lounge space on the east side of the hotel. There will be seating for more than 140 people, an open kitchen where guests can watch the chefs work, and, of course, al fresco dining where guests can be enveloped by the natural beauty of Aspen.
As part of the grand reopening, the award- winning resort has also rolled out enhanced spaces including new guest room interiors, bathrooms and suites, embellished meeting and event spaces and new public areas, including an intimate library with a fireplace.
“By choosing The St. Regis Aspen, it speaks volumes about the people and culture of Aspen, and how everyone can come together and bring new ideas to life,” Kavanaugh says. “This new restaurant is going to ‘wow’ everyone—from the world traveler to the local Aspenite. There’s never been anything like it.”
