Four Best New Chefs award-winners from around the country grace the Chefs Club by FOOD & WINE kitchen for the next six months, designing masterful new menus and individually styled dishes.- By Amiee White Beazley
It’s the most desired table in Aspen. The chef’s table at Chefs Club by FOOD & WINE runs the length of the dining room in front of a large opening that peers directly into the kitchen. There, four of FOOD & WINE magazine’s Best New Chefs are set to take the helm at different times throughout the 2012 to 2013 winter and spring seasons. When the chefs aren’t at the resort, another star, The St. Regis Aspen Resort’s Executive Chef Thomas Riordan, leads the lively kitchen; his team working at a steady pace, running like a perfectly timed orchestra.
The experience at the chef’s table provides diners a unique perspective into the inner workings of each chef’s style of cooking, how he or she handles the variables of a fine dining kitchen and how each crafts his or her own perfectly executed dishes. While seated there, guests can interact with the chef, ask him or her questions about the approach and watch as he or she prepares some of the best plates in America. It is an experience for all five of the senses, and one that has quickly become Aspen’s most sought-after reservation.
Beginning this December, Chefs Club by FOOD & WINE will take the epicurean experience to a new level. Four very different chefs from around the country will convene at this state-of-the-art kitchen to bring the new Chefs Club by FOOD & WINE menu to life.
Matthew Lightner, 2010 Best New Chef, is the celebrated chef behind Atera in New York City, which was recently awarded two Michelin stars; next is Kevin Willmann, 2011 Best New Chef, of St. Louis’ Farmhaus; Jonathon Sawyer, 2010 Best New Chef, is from Cleveland’s The Greenhouse Tavern and Noodlecat; and Jenn Louis, 2012 Best New Chef, is of Portland, Ore.’s Lincoln Restaurant, Culinary Artistry and Sunshine Tavern fame.
2010 Best New Chef Jonathon Sawyer
Guests may recognize chef Jonathon Sawyer from the TV shows “Iron Chef America,” “Dinner Impossible,” “Unique Eats” and “The Best Thing I Ever Ate.” Sawyer’s personality is almost as big as his career, which has continued to grow since being named Best New Chef in 2010.
A former protegee of another notable Cleveland chef, Michael Symon, Sawyer is now operating several restaurants in Cleveland of his own, including his flagship The Greenhouse Tavern, a French and seasonally inspired gastro-pub, and Noodlecat, a mashup noodle house focusing on local ingredients, sustainability and premium ramen.
The concept of guest chefs is an exciting one for Sawyer, who is already known for working with guest chefs at his own pop-up restaurant concept. Brick & Mortar Popups, Cleveland’s first pop-up restaurant group, has become tremendously popular in the region. In the past, the group has inducted illustrious guest chefs like Lee Anne Wong, Jeff Michaud and Jason Roberts.
“I think people look at pop-ups in different ways,” he says. “Ours is someone else making food produced in an entirely different space.”
Sawyer explains that guest chefs provide a great experience all around—for the kitchen staff, who gets to meet and work with some of the best chefs from around the country; for the diners, who get to try an entirely new style of food; and for his own restaurant, which is often heavily influenced by those visiting chefs. These experiences and benefits are sure to be reflected at Chefs Club by FOOD & WINE, too.
With plans to be in the Chefs Club by FOOD & WINE kitchen for approximately 40 days this winter, Sawyer is expected to greatly influence the restaurant’s operations as well as the execution of its menu. He will also be the first chef to offer up selections for a children’s menu at the restaurant. The father of two refuses to “cook down” to children; instead, he’s created items that are inventive, fun and flavorful, such as hummus pizza, barbecue chicken and the beef sandwich, named by his son and built with steamed buns, miso and beef. He’ll also offer a build-your-own taco dish for children, inspired by his own “Sawyer Family Taco Night.”
2012 Best New Chef Jenn Louis
The philosophy and approach of being consistent, simple and purposeful has propelled chef Jenn Louis to a culinary career spanning nearly two decades. In 2000, Louis’ entrepreneurial spirit led her to open Culinary Artistry in Portland, Ore., a full-service catering company providing everything from valet service to floral arrangements to an array of menu styles. Today, it is considered one of the top event planning companies in Portland—one that is not only wildly successful but also committed to sustainable business practices. But it was Louis and her husband David Welch’s first brick-and-mortar concept, Lincoln Restaurant, which propelled her onto the national stage.
Lincoln is a balance between old and new, modern and classic, rustic and refined. Louis’ menu takes its cue from the seasons, harvesting locally grown ingredients and transforming them into sophisticated yet honest fare. Just a few short months after opening, the restaurant was recognized on Condé Nast Traveler’s “Hot List” of 50 top new restaurants in North America, while Louis was recognized as a semifinalist for the 2010 and 2011 James Beard Foundation’s Best Chef Northwest.
In the spring of 2011, Louis and Welch launched their second restaurant, Sunshine Tavern, in the Southeast Division district of Portland. Louis and Welch sought to create a haven for both young families and singles, serving up soul-satisfying food and playful cocktails. In 2012, the popularity of Lincoln Restaurant and Sunshine Tavern catapulted Louis’ presence on a national scale, and she was named one of FOOD & WINE’s prestigious Best New Chefs.
“There is so much talent out there,” Louis says. “And what excites me about a project like this is collaboration. The opportunity to collaborate and work with other chefs in another facility is a really great experience.”
As for her menu additions, you can expect what Louis does best: dishes that are comforting and unfussy, while using the highest quality ingredients available—a philosophy she is passionate about.
“I’m not changing my cuisine that will be at Chefs Club by FOOD & WINE by any means,” she says. “What I do is about craftsmanship. If you are going to do something, do it really well. But we always have to continue to learn push forward, and that’s always been my focus. We want to represent what we do at Lincoln to the Aspen community.”
2011 Best New Chef Kevin Willmann
With his Southern Gulf Coast-meets-Midwest farmer laidback disposition, chef Kevin Willmann is sure to be welcomed with open arms into the mountain town of Aspen, where honoring one’s roots with exceptional farm-to-table cuisine is revered.
Willmann has focused on the food grown and raised by the community in earnest from the beginning of his career. His St. Louis restaurant, Farmhaus, is recognized as a farm-to-table leader, where his recipes are often kept on “chicken scratch notebooks in our back pockets.” His work is different than the other chefs, but it is this diversity, Willmann says, that makes this kind of dining experience so exciting and continually fresh.
“Diners can try four different styles of American cooking in one place; that’s what has me so excited about being a part of this,” he says. “There is so much diversity, and instead of being afraid of it or confused by it, I look at it as an opportunity to celebrate it. There is so much opportunity there with four chefs. And they will tweak the menu throughout the season as well. That gives local people and return visitors a chance to see the seasonal changes.”
Seafood holds a prominent place alongside local pork on Willmann’s menus. As a child his family raised hogs and farmed crops such as corn, soybeans and alfalfa, as well as grew fruits and vegetables in gardens for the family. Willmann’s family would eventually leave Greenville, Ill., and make a home in the agriculturally different city of Gulf Breeze, Fla., where he instantly became passionate for the Gulf and its backwaters and bayous. He found work as a young man doing all things fishing, including several years as fish cutter and delivery boy at The Fish Peddler, where he delivered fish to the many of the area’s best restaurants.
At the 65-seat Farmhaus, which he runs with his wife Jessica, Willmann and his team butcher and utilize whole animals and fish in the ever-changing menu that reflects his experiences. There are often Southern notes to Willmann’s cuisine that pull from his beloved Gulf Coast region, which will also be evident in his contribution to Chefs Club by FOOD & WINE.
“Fish is a big passion of mine,” he says. “I grew up in the Gulf region and have deep connections to that food. Those fish dishes we make now are more sophisticated than what we grew up with, but they are always something I’m excited about. I want people to know that the Gulf Coast fisheries are still there, and the fish is so good, it’s tested every day. It’s something that is really important to me.”
2010 Best New Chef Matthew Lightner
There has been a bright spotlight placed on Matthew Lightner this year, a chef already known for working in the world’s finest kitchens. From Copenhagen’s renowned Noma to California’s L’Auberge Del Mar alongside James Beard Award-winning chef Paul McCabe, Lightner grew roots in the ideologies of season and place.
In 2007, as one of 15 chefs awarded the annual Young Chefs Culinary Scholarship in Spain, he met his mentor, Andoni Aduriz, at Mugaritz. There, Lightner gained a natural perspective of modern cooking that built the foundations for the cuisine that garnered him accolades at Castagna in Portland, Ore.
In addition to being named one of FOOD & WINE’s Best New Chefs in 2010, Lightner also received nominations for Rising Star Chef by the James Beard Foundation in both 2010 and 2011. Additionally, he was included in Restaurant Hospitality’s list of “10 Chefs to Watch” in 2010.
In December 2011, he had the opportunity to showcase his talents to great acclaim alongside the Napa Valley three-Michelin-starred chef Christopher Kostow for Meadowood’s “Twelve Days of Christmas” charitable dining series.
His new restaurant Atera, however, in New York City’s Tribeca neighborhood, is Lightner’s most ambitious venture to date. The restaurant, which recently earned two Michelin stars, relies greatly on the chef’s innate connection to time and place to create a dining experience unique to itself.
Since opening in March 2012, Atera has earned numerous accolades, including a four-star review from New York Magazine and a three-star review from The New York Times, in which the paper’s restaurant critic Pete Wells calls his experience there “a steady sense of wonder.”
No doubt he will bring that wonder to Aspen this winter beside the three other Best New Chefs in the restaurant’s kitchen this season. With these four culinary masters in town, ready to showcase their individual talents and stylings to guests of the award-winning Chefs Club by FOOD & WINE, the next six months are sure to give a renewed excitement to Aspen’s dining scene.
