The Columbia’s Richard Gonzmart Earns Outstanding Restaurateur Beard Nomination [There’s MORE?]

Posted Feb 21, 2012 by Jeff Houck

Updated Feb 21, 2012 at 04:16 PM

In what has to be one of the biggest culinary days in Tampa history, The Columbia Restaurant’s president Richard Gonzmart was nominated today in the Outstanding Restaurateur category for the prestigious James Beard awards.

Also nominated for Beard awards Tuesday were Chad Johnson, executive chef at SideBern’s, and Greg Baker, executive chef and co-owner of The Refinery in Tampa. Both were semifinalists in the Best Chef South regional category.

Gonzmart, a fourth-generation family operator of the 107-year-old Columbia, joins heavy hitters in the category, including Stephen Starr of Philadelphia, and New York City restaurateurs Eric and Bruce Bromberg.

“Some people get it right in a couple years,” Gonzmart joked. “It took us a little longer, I guess. We’ve been practicing a long time.”

Among Gonzmart’s many awards (you can read his extensive biography here), he was named Florida’s “Humanitarian of the Year Award” in 2005 by the National Restaurant Association. Earlier this month the Tampa Metro Civitan Club honored Gonzmart with its Citizen of the Year Award. Gonzmart recently won a bid to renovate Tampa’s historic Water Works Building for use as a restaurant along the Hillsborough River.

“What a tremendous honor,” Gonzmart said of the nomination. “It has been my lifelong commitment to bring back the glory we earned in the ‘40s. “

You can read the entire list of the James Beard award nominees in all the categories here.

Outstanding Restaurateur

Edward Aloise and Claudia Rippee, E&C Restaurant Management Corporation, Manchester, N.H. 

Nick Badovinus, Flavor Hook, Dallas

Ashok Bajaj, Knightsbridge Restaurant Group, Washington, D.C.

Tom Baron and Bill Fuller, Big Burrito restaurant Group, Pittsburgh

Roger Berkowitz, Legal Sea Foods, Boston

Frank Bonanno, Bonanno Concepts, Denver

Bruce Bromberg and Eric Bromberg, Blue Ribbon Restaurants, NYC

Richard D’Amico and Larry D’Amico, D’Amico & Partners, Minneapolis

Jason Dady, Jason Dady Restaurants, San Antonio, Texas

Tom Douglas, Tom Douglas Restaurants, Seattle

Sam Fox, Fox Restaurant Concepts, Scottsdale, Ariz.
 
Richard Gonzmart, Columbia Restaurant, Tampa, Fla.

Mike Klank and Eddie Hernandez, Taqueria Del Sol, Atlanta

Donnie Madia, One Off Hospitality, Chicago

Nick Pihakis, Jim ‘n Nick’s Bar-B-Q, Birmingham, Ala.

Piero Selvaggio, Valentino Restaurant Group, Santa Monica, Calif.

Stephen Starr, Starr Restaurants, Philadelphia

Caroline Styne, Lucques/A.O.C./tavern, Los Angeles

Phil Suarez, Suarez Restaurant Group, NYC

Doug Washington, Mitchell Rosenthal, and Steven Rosenthal, Stock & Bones, San Francisco

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The Refinery’s Greg Baker and SideBern’s Chad Johnson Earn Beard Nominations [Big Hairy Deal]

Posted Feb 21, 2012 by Jeff Houck

Updated Feb 22, 2012 at 10:16 AM

The James Beard nominations are out. Tampa did very well.

Chefs Greg Baker of The Refinery and Chad Johnson of SideBern’s both earned nominations in the semifinals for Best Chef in the South. (Beard breaks the chef competition into several regions.)

This is the second nomination for The Refinery, but the first for Baker in the chef category. (The Refinery was a semifinalist for Best New Restaurant in the U.S. in 2011.) This is Johnson’s first Beard nomination.

Originally from Louisville, Ky., Johnson started at SideBern’s about 8 years ago as a cook and worked his way up through the ranks. He became executive chef about four years ago.

Johnson said he was as excited for his restaurant staff as he was for himself.

“My staff is full of young cooks who are ambitious and hungry,” he says. “This is as much a feather in their cap as anything.”

“Two chefs nominated from little ‘ol Tampa,” Johnson said this morning. “How about that?”

Baker said today that business jumped 60 percent in one day after The Refinery earned the Best New Restaurant nomination last year. That wave of customers lasted six weeks before it tapered to a more manageable flow. He wasn’t sure what this nomination would do.

“Today, I’m calling in the nuclear option with all of my vendors and suppliers,” he joked. “I’m telling them, ‘You better work with me as best you can.”

Baker said he was stunned by the news and credited the team he and wife Michelle created since opening in 2010. Michelle Baker runs the front-of-house operations and manages the business aspects.

“Michelle is the unsung hero in this whole thing,” he said.

“This personally is huge,” he says. “Ever since we opened the restaurant, I’ve been alienating friends and family and worked myself to the bone. This is validating all of that.”

The entire list for each category can be found here.

Here’s the competition for Baker and Johnson:

Best Chef South

Greg Baker, The Refinery, Tampa Fla.

Vishwesh Bhatt, Snackbar, Oxford, Miss.

Clay Conley, Buccan, Palm Beach, Fla.

Paula DaSilva, 1500º at Eden Roc Renaissance Miami Beach, Miami Beach, Fla

Justin Devillier, La Petite Grocery, New Orleans

Justin Girouard, The French Press, Lafayette, La.

John Harris, Lilette, New Orleans

Chris Hastings, Hot and Hot Fish Club, Birmingham, Ala.

Scott Hunnel, Victoria & Albert’s at Disney’s Grand Floridian resort & Spa, Lake Buena Vista, Fla.

Chad Johnson, SideBern’s, Tampa, FL

James Lewis, Bettola, Birmingham, Ala.

Jeff McIcinnis, Yardbird Southern Table & Bar, Miami Beach, Fla.

Tory McPhail, Commander’s Palace, New Orleans

Sergio Navarro, Pubbelly, Miami Beach, Fla.

James and Julie Petrakis, The Ravenous Pig, Winter Park, Fla.

Lee Richardson, Ashley’s at the Capital Hotel, Little Rock, Ark.

Jeanie Roland, The Perfect Caper, Punta Gorda, Fla.

Henry Salgado, Spanish River Grill, New Smyrna Beach, Fla.

Alon Shaya, Domenica, New Orleans

Wesley True, True, Mobile, Ala.

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Sneaky Macaroni, Oreo Chocolate Chip Cookies, Bacon-Wrapped Meatloaf [This Week’s Weekend Eats]

Posted Feb 20, 2012 by Jeff Houck

Updated Feb 20, 2012 at 03:09 PM

Every week we do Weekend Eats and ask readers to share the best they had to eat and drink over the weekend, it gets increasingly harder to pick a winner.

Consider this week’s conundrum.

Do you go for the Oreo-stuffed chocolate chip cookie? Or the meatloaf swaddled in porkalicious bacon? How exactly do you break the news to someone who ate paella, Chorizo cazuela, chickpea & spinach with Moorish spices that, gee, you know, it just wasn’t the tip-top.

Because that would be a lie.

if I could give awards to the lot of them, I would. PRIZES FOR EVERYONE!

But I can’t.

So this week, I made the Sophie’s choice of giving this week’s top honor to Samantha Ferraro, who writes the blog Little Ferraro Kitchen, and can be found on Twitter at @FerraroKitchen, took the top prize this week with her Spicy Thai Coconut Soup with Shrimp.

Look at that bowl, would you? My goodness. I need a bib to catch the drool.

She writes about the soup on her blog:

I have been cooking out of my comfort zone the last few weeks; making spicy and flavorful authentic Asian soups and buying ingredients that don’t have one single word of English. It’s great.
I spotted this masterpiece in the most recent edition of Cooking Light and knew I had to jump in. We all order that spicy coconut soup at the local Thai place all the time…but making it at home…let’s do it!

Spicy and bright are the first two sensations that spark those tongue senses. Al-dente bites from the mushroom and red pepper stud through out the soup giving it delicious texture. A good squeeze of lime and sprinkles of fresh cilantro cut through the creaminess of the silky coconut milk. A gorgeous combination of Asian pairings that will rock your taste buds.

Her prize for that spectacular serving of soup?

“Seoultown Kitchen; Korean Pub Grub to Share with Family and Friends,” by Debbie Lee.

Other contributions this week included:

@divathatateny - Silky, slippery, sensuous rice noodles swimming in a pool of ground pork, chili, sichuan peppercorns, cilantro & roast peanuts. Yes, I did take a cold shower after I ate them…

@otmdish - Baby squid w chile-spiked heirloom tom sauce. broccoli rabe. Munched on Halfpops - My latest crush.

@SRowl - Spicy Thai peanut chicken

@terrysimpson - Slow-smoked ribs, grilled corn on the cob. Grilled asparagus.

Like I said. Tough to choose.

Want to see how tough? Check out this week’s Gallery of Noms. (Click on each photo to read a description):

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From Rolling Pin To ‘Top Chef’ [Moto Chef Richie Farina Comes Home To Cook In Brandon]

Posted Feb 20, 2012 by Jeff Houck

Updated Feb 20, 2012 at 02:19 PM

When Richie Farina turned 16, he worked at Sbarro pizza in the Brandon Mall food court for a little more than a year.

The cooking bug bit him after about six months, when they finally let him make pizzas. Emeril Lagasse was the big celebrity chef at the time. Richie picked up tips by watching his show on Food Network. Eventually, he was making all of the food for the restaurant.

Then one day while walking through the mall, he saw a “help wanted” sign in the window of the mall’s Rolling Pin Kitchen Emporium operated by Karen and Dave West. During breaks at Sbarro, he would sometimes wander through the store looking at the hundreds of gadgets and tools. He applied for the part-time job while going to Riverview High School and was hired.

He caught on quick.

“I’m kind of a competitive person, so I always wanted to be the person who sold the most stuff or had the cleanest section,” he says.

That was especially true during the holidays, when the knife company Wusthof would have promotions that gave sales associates discounts if they sold enough cutlery.

“I remember that he was a good seller,” Dave West says. “I also remember the puka shell necklace he used to wear.”

Richie dug it when a shopper who only wanted one knife would walk out with an entire set after a helpful prod. With one of the discounts he’d earned, he bought an 8-inch Santoku knife with scalloped edges along the blade.

When a customer would return an item, Karen West would let Ritchie take it home instead of returning it to the company. Soon, his mom Mary Grace’s kitchen was stocked with all sorts of kitchen tools.

Saturated with a love for cooking, Richie left at age 18 to get a culinary arts degree at Johnson & Wales University in Rhode Island.

The first month was intimidating. He didn’t want to be known as the kid who messed up. Using the knives he worked for at the Rolling Pin, he soaked in all the classes in basic techniques such as searing, broiling and poaching. The chef who taught the garmangier class saw he had talent for carving ice and hired him to make decorative sculptures using chainsaws and chisels.

After graduation, Richie moved to Boston and worked his way up the food chain in three restaurants before taking his knives and relocating to Chicago to become chef de cuisine at Homer Cantu’s wildly innovative restaurant Moto.

Meanwhile, a few years ago, Richie’s sister convinced him to try out for “Top Chef,” Bravo’s reality TV cooking competition. He got the nod to be on the cast for the current season, based in Texas.

Unlike other seasons, where the opening cast was selected by producers, Richie had to cook his way onto the show, beating out more than a dozen other chefs.

He was excited to be on the show, mostly because his buddy at Moto, Chris Jones, also made it to the cast.

All did not go well, though. In episode 4, Richie ran into a chili cook-off that went from bad to worse. His final dish, a Frito-encrusted pork tenderloin with potato hash and ricotta cheese chili purée, didn’t make the cut.

So when “Top Chef” host Padma Lakshmi told him to “Please pack your knives and go,” the blades he took with him were the ones he earned while working at the Rolling Pin. By then, his prized Santoku blade had been used so much in his decade of cooking, the scallops had been sharpened away.

Last weekend, Richie came home to do two days of cooking demonstrations at the Rolling Pin, which moved out of the mall to Badlands Drive after he left for the big city. The cramped store he worked in now has a full-size demonstration kitchen with glitzy motion-activated cameras and flat-screen TVs.

It was his first time doing a cooking demonstration. With his mom doing prep and his father Peter wearing a Team Richie T-shirt, Farina made Braised Chicken and Roasted Beets with Puffed Rice and a dessert that looked like a chili dog with cheese

The demos were Richie’s way of paying back the Rolling Pin.

“Before I worked here, I had no idea how much stuff there was to use in the kitchen,” he says. “It gave me a leg up going into culinary school.”

Here’s a gallery of pics I shot while Farina was getting ready for his second demonstration:

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Juicy Oozers, Sour Chewy Cubes And Broken Hearts [Visiting The Aisle Of Misfit Valentines]

Posted Feb 15, 2012 by Jeff Houck

Updated Feb 15, 2012 at 04:56 PM

Is there anything more depressing than the drugstore candy aisle on the day after Valentine’s?

Depends on your perspective, I guess.

On one hand, you have half-priced chocolate.

On the other you have a row of remainders, cast-offs for whom there were no buyers.

Think about that.

Last night, at the final moment, the second in which most men begin their Valentine’s shopping for pitching of holiday-induced woo, these scraps of calories and fabric and animatronic dolls weren’t good enough to make the lowest rung on the most desperate love night of the year.

Like that candy above.

Chocolate Sweethearts. On paper, it looks like a good idea.

I can see the meetings that went into this. Somebody says, “People love Sweethearts on Valentines. Women love chocolate. Let’s put the two together.” A lot of harrumphing and “Yes, that’s a brilliant idea!” proclamations erupt and before you know it, you have a box of chalky faux-chocolate mints that go unsold.

But just because they weren’t sold by Valentine’s doesn’t mean they can’t be sold. Eventually.

That’s what Walgreens figures, I guess. Hopes for, is probably more accurate.

Every year, Walgreens puts its candy on sale the day after Valentine’s Day. Who would buy such a thing?

Well, people like these nice folks.

For the half hour I wasted time by not writing words for The Man lingered at a Tampa store, almost all of the bargain shoppers were women. Some were wearing office attire. Others donned pajamas and sweat pants and bikinis under t-shirts and shorts. Only one guy, who looked to be in his early 20s and fresh from a visit to the probation officer, dropped by. Which, when you think about it, was a stroke of genius. Talk about a target-rich environment full of unrequited chocolate cravers.

The irony was that although the discounts were deep, the quality of the selections was not. This isn’t a knock on Walgreens. You’ve gotta fill your aisles with something, after all. Taiwan and China can only make just so much stuff people actually want. No doubt the scene was being played out today in stores wherever mass-produced Cupid gear was sold.

Still, the pickings were slim, to say the least. But all showed obvious reasons for why they went undrafted in the fantasy football league of love.

Tragic name. From the Black Forest, no less.

Nothing says true love like candy that blows the lid off your cranium.

How uncute was this lion?

They tied a bag of Reese’s peanut butter cups to its leg and it still went unbought.

That’s like putting a $100 bill around the neck of an ugly puppy at the pound.

Apparently not as top as one might expect.

Suitable for:

* A hunter with a burning passion for someone who doesn’t mind the smell of deer urine

* A doomsday prepper looking to repopulate the earth after the apocalypse

* Larry the Cable Guy

Hot mess on Aisle 6.

Hot mess on Aisle 5.

How much do I love you? Enough to give you M&Ms with John Waters on the bag

.

How very 1998.

Sounds like a Cinemax movie.

These aren’t Valentines for geeks. They’re guaranteed, 100 percent effective contraception.

Send that one on the right and you’re guaranteed to be Thor in the morning.

You never know when a half-priced bear will come in handy.

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