Posts Tagged ‘Michael-Symon’

James Beard Foundation Spreads the Love

May 4, 2009 St. Louis, chefs, missouri, restaurants

Sadly, Niche’s Gerard Craft did not win the James Beard Award for Best Chef: Midwest. Instead it went to Tim McKee of La Belle Vie in Minneapolis. To show you something interesting, however, here are the nominees and winners over the last five years.

I have also included the 2007-2009 Best Chef: Great Lakes Region as many contenders now in that region (especially in Chicago) were part of the Midwest region through 2006. I have made bold those chefs who ultimately won, and have italicized those chefs who did not win but still dropped off the nomination list the following year.

Best Chef: Midwest (Currently: IA, KS, MN, MO, NE, ND, SD, WI)

  • 2009 Nominees: Isaac Becker, Gerard Craft, Colby Garrelts, Tim McKee, Alexander Roberts
  • 2008 Nominees: Isaac Becker, Colby Garrelts, Tim McKee, Alexander Roberts, Alex Siegel
  • 2007 Nominees: Colby Garrelts, Tim McKee, Alex Roberts, Adam Siegel, Celina Tio
  • 2006 Nominees: Jean-Robert De Cavel, Shawn McClain, Carrie Nahabedian, Brian Polcyn, Lucia Watson
  • 2005 Nominees: Sandro Gamba, Michael Kornick, Tony Mantuano, Shawn McClain, Lucia Watson

Best Chef: Great Lakes (IL, IN, MI, OH)

  • 2009 Nominees: Koren Grieveson, Arun Sampanthavivat, Bruce Sherman, Michael Symon, Alex Young
  • 2008 Nominees: Graham Elliot Bowles, Carrie Nahabedian, Bruce Sherman, Michael Symon, Alex Young
  • 2007 Nominees: Grant Achatz, Carrie Nahabedian, Bruce Sherman, Michael Symon, Alex Young

Note the following:

  • Through 2006, when Chicago was included in the Midwest, they dominated.
  • Chicago still dominates the new Great Lakes Region
  • Rarely do chefs drop off the list until they’ve won
  • When they do drop off without winning, it often means they switched restaurants
  • Three chefs dropped in the 2006/2007 region-shifting, but Chicago also picked up a ringer: Grant Achatz. And really, how do you compete against that?
  • Another one of those three chefs got snubbed because of Michael Symon who, in 2005, closed his restaurant Lola and reopened it as Lolita. He then reopened Lola in a newer, fancier location in 2006, became the star we know him to be today, and subsequently showed up on the list.

So as you can see, unless some crazy bad-ass shows up in the Midwest region (and really we like to think of that as Gerard don’t we?), what that means for Chef Craft (and St. Louis) is that we’ll more than likely see his name return to the short list again next year–and hopefully until he ultimately pulls home the prestigious award.

Whatever the future brings, however, he continues to be a shining addition the the St. Louis culinary landscape. He has brought a lot of national attention to a city not typically known for it’s dining.  That’s a great thing, and I personally thank him for it.

After the jump, view an alphabetical list of all the nominees, the restaurants they were nominated for, and their new restaurants if applicable…

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Symon Says

Nov 17, 2007 chefs, general food

mike symonMichael Symon has a blog now, and it’s titled exactly what you’d expect it to be: Symon Says.

And as I can’t mention Symon without people instantly thinking about his recent claim to fame, I might as well comment on that too.

Honestly, I hate Iron Chef . Maybe that’s a little strong, but the silliness that surrounds it annoys me. The few episodes I can stand are the ones with Jeffrey Steingarten judging because really, how could anyone be more of a hilariously jaw dropping asshole?

For me, as I’m a big Tom Colicchio fan, my personal choice in the realm of reality based food programming is Top Chef. But don’t think for a second I’m not aware that it’s equally annoying for a totally different set of reasons. The over-the-top product placement is incredible, and I love watching Padma Lakshmi try to keep a straight face as she says more and more ridiculous things with each passing week. The big reason I like though, and especially so this year, is that many of their challenges show whether the chefs involved have real culinary chops; even when they’re silly.

So it came as a surprise when The Next Iron Chef reeled me in and flung itself forcefully into the number two spot. I knew I’d be watching from the start because if you look over on the right, in the list of blogs I like is Chris Cosentino’s Offal Good.

But I knew even though I’d be watching the show, it came as an especially big surprise when I was actually lured into liking the show.

Unlike Top Chef there appeared to be no ringers chosen for personality over skill. Every chef on the show was outstanding, and while some had TV friendly personalities, it was more of an added bonus than their main reason for selection.

More importantly, the challenges were well conceived (mostly) and did an excellent job showing who amongst a cast of great chefs was the truly outstanding one.

And there I was rooting for my man Cosentino until a couple episodes in it was pretty obvious that although he was putting up some killer food, it would be coming down to Mr. Southern, John Besh, and the seemingly insane Michael Symon. I made the the only logical decision and quickly jumped ship like the true fair weather fan I am by realigning my cheers with Symon. You should know, however, that although Ellie and I chose to go to Kansas City in September for our anniversary, Cleveland was our second choice, and specifically so we could eat at Lola and Lolita; Symon’s restaurants.

In the end Ellie was right all along proving to be an admirable alternate .

You can tune in Sunday for the first Symon battle royale, and as you would expect, with so much ridiculous Thanksgiving program cluttering up FoodTV right now, it’s the Thanksgiving special. I’ll actually be watching for once, because let’s face it, Symon makes good TV — he’s insane. Plus, it should be interesting to see what they’ll be giving them to work with. Turducken anyone?

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