Louisville has beenabuzz with Top Chef sightings and talk as Season 16 of the ever-popular Bravo cooking competition continues totakeover the state.
We all want to know where are they filming? Who's on the show? What food is on the show? Where's Padma Lakshmi and what is she wearing?What does Top Chef mean for Louisville and our food scene to have a show like that land here?
So many questions!
Most I can't answer (right now).But we can look to some friends out west for a sneak preview of what might be headed our way.Season 15 of the popular cooking competition filmed in Colorado this time last year and aired over the winter.
Denver-area food writer Allyson Reedy covered the show for the Denver Post and thinks the spotlight may have helped the Mile High City win some national recognition.
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"We doubled our James Beard Award nominees this year compared to last,” she said, and “we're popping up on national best lists and the like. I mean we can't know for sure why we're getting more on the radar for these things and it's not necessarily because of Top Chef, but it certainly can't hurt.”
Curious to see firsthand what the impact of this show could look like, I headed to Denver myself. To get right into the swing of things, I answered the Where Would Padma Sleep question by staying atThe Maven, a boutique hotel in lower downtown, aka LoDo, where the show's top brass set up camp.
After a day and a half of eating and drinking my way around Denver I have to say I came away with some city envy. My hotel; Milk Market, the adjoining brand new food hall from restaurateur Frank Bonanno; and Dairy Block, an activated alley, have given new life to a former parking lot (something we have a few of to spare around here).
A kind of epicurean-heaven-meets-modern-transportation-hub in a historic space that you might dream up if you were making a film with Wes Anderson was my favorite spot in town; Union Station is a 1914 Beaux Arts train station also home to chef-owned restaurants, a farmers market, local shops, hotel, and inviting seating.
It was here I started my whirlwind Top Chef tour of Denver, with breakfast at Mercantile, a venture from James Beard Best Chef Southwest Alex Seidel that showcases provisions from his own farm in addition to other regional purveyors. The restaurant and farm were featured in a challenge on the show.
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The restaurateur has seen the western city's culinary scene transform in his 15+ years there, he later told me.
“There was a time when people didn't want anything special here. It was a steak and potato town.” Now, per Conde Nast Traveler, “Denver Is Officially a Food City.”
Indeed, all signs pointed to this, from Death & Co. opening its first bar outside New York, to my dinner at contestant Carrie Baird's restaurant Bar Dough where at 5:30 p.m. on a rainy Sunday it was wall-to-wall people.
But where does Top Chef fit into all this? I talked with Seidel and Bonanno, who both appeared on the show, to see what insights they might share with us here in Louisville.
Is it really a case of 'batten down the hatches'? I wondered. Maybe not exactly, the chefs said. At least not in terms of people beating down the door at their restaurants (which, to be fair, were already doing just fine). It's more the idea of raising the city's visibility and viability as a food destination.
“Everybody comes to Colorado and goes to Aspen for the Food and Wine Classic,” Seidel said. “Denver's just a place you take a plane to. For so long chefs would skip right over Denver and probably for good reason, to be honest. For me the coolest part was having people see that we actually do have a community that is surrounded by food, and our craft liquor scene and our craft beer scene ... it's a very unique place.”
“The goal of the show is that people see your city in a light that [makes them say] 'I want to go there,'” Bonanno said. “It's a well and thoughtfully done show that showcases what makes a city great. If you're watching and you're planing your vacation … you say, 'oh they were there, we should go there.'”
And it's not just about elevating a city to outsiders. The show created a buzz that got locals excited about their own hometown, Bonanno said.
In fact, at Comal Heritage Food Incubator where I stopped in for lunch, the show brought the non-profit cafe a new audience, manager Matthew Vernon said. They saw a boom in catering orders following their appearance on an episode (and a big bump in social media followers). More Denverites than before are enjoying Latin American and Middle Eastern cuisine prepared by women entrepreneurs.
But at the end of the day, Bonanno said, smaller markets like Denver will never get the acclaim of the New Yorks of the world. “You will always feel like the little brother.”
And that's OKin his book.
“Chefs here are still able to open restaurants on their own,” he said. “I love that we're still small. It's not as easy once you start getting that kind of press — landlords start realizing [they can charge more].”
Sure, we all want recognition for our food scenes, but, he said, “be careful what you wish for, right?”
His parting wisdom?
“You just take pride in your own cities. I've stopped worrying about all the national press. You do as a city what you know is the right thing to do and you keep your hospitality.”
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Tell Dana! Send your restaurant “Dish” to Dana McMahan at thecjdish@gmail.com and follow @danamac on Twitter.
