Yesterday, the Feed took a break from pounding the Meatpacking cobblestones to relax in the plush screening room of the Soho House. We came to hear chefs, including Anita Lo, Scott Conant and Anne Burrell, sound off at New York Cooks: Up Close and Personal. The panel—which also included Porter House New York’s Michael Lomonaco and Little Owl partners Mikey Price and Joey Campanaro— was a plug for the just-released book with an almost identical name. Some of our favorite tidbits (like Anita Lo’s FBI file and Conant’s move to Canada), after the jump. Read more »

A blatant excuse to re-post Dimeo's saucy Facebook pic.

Last night’s episode marked the end of Food Network’s slightly botched experiment with the tournament of Chopped Champions (the show returns to its normal schedule on October 13th). Last week’s winner, The Brooklyn Standard’s Cody Utzman, fought for a third win against previous winners John Lawson, executive sous-chef at Gordon Ramsay at the London; Diane Dimeo, chef of the underground supper club Red Box Bistro; and the owner of Exceptional Taste catering, Darius Peacock. Judges for the episode were Aarón Sanchez, Alex Guarnaschelli and Scott Conant.

Appetizers included live lobsters, bananas and endives. Peacock earned points early on for a stellar banana puree that overshadowed his too-tough grilled lobster; Dimeo, too, presented substandard lobster in her yogurty dish, which reminded Guarnaschelli too much of breakfast. Read more »

Einat Admony earns membership to the illustrious "Chopped Two-timers Club."

Last night’s continuation of Food Network’s show-within-a-show, Chopped Champions, pitted last week’s winner James Briscione—an instructor at ICE—against fellow former champions Einat Admony of Taim, Gavin Mills (most recently at Broadway East) and Pippa Calland, a caterer from central Pennsylvania. Judges for the episode were Chopped! favorites Scott Conant and Aaron Sanchez, along with legally embroiled chef Jody Williams. Read more »

Runner-up Zappoli and his grandmother, who loves his zeppole.

Well, dear reader, we lied to you. We thought workaholic Ted Allen was taking a break this week, but the man and his crack team over at Chopped! are apparently in this one for the long haul. Last night’s episode, “Pods, Grills and Sticky Fingers,” included chefs Maristella Innocenti of Matilda restaurant; Joe Bayley, sous chef at Cobblestone Foods in Brooklyn; Matthew Zappoli of Tre Amici in Long Branch, New Jersey; and Moha Orchid, an NYC-based private chef who claims to have invented couscous sushi (”Instead of rice, it’s couscous!”). Judges this time around were “illustrious restaurateur” (Ted’s words, not ours) Geoffrey Zakarian, Amanda Freitag and Scott Conant. Read more »

Julio Lazzarini and his friend the blender.

Last night’s episode of Chopped! demonstrated that, despite the New York–centric nature of the program, even chefs from as far as Wilmington, Delaware, have a shot at the title. That chef—Julio Lazzarini of Orillas Tapas Bar—was joined by Mark Spooner, a veritable mountain of a man and chef with Great Performances catering, “the fourth largest catering company in America,” Massimo Felici of DeGrezia restaurant in midtown, and Christine Campbell, a butcher and private chef working on Long Island. Judges were Aaron Sanchez, Scott Conant and Amanda Freitag—who sported a wispy, almost Shirley Temple–esque ‘do. Read more »

Michael Ferraro slices his ill-fated squid.

Apologies, Feed readers, for this late dispatch of Tuesday night’s episode of Chopped! We’ll be back in the saddle with (timely) recaps next week.

The second season of Chopped! moseyed along on Tuesday night with episode two. High-fives all around for the serious tristate-area representation: Chefs included Michael Ferraro of Delicatessen; John Lawson, executive sous chef at Gordon Ramsay at the London; David Kirschner (W Hotel in Hoboken); and Nicole Puzio (Ox Restaurant in Jersey City). Read more »

"I was a young punk once too."—Scott Conant

We sat down for the season finale of Chopped! with a tear in our eye. The memories of Hosea’s decidedly nonepic win of Top Chef are starting to fade, and The Chopping Block was an out-and-out failure. Without a weekly dose of Ted Allen, what will we be left with? Dinner: Impossible won’t fill the void…Lord, no. With that in mind, we delighted in last night’s viewing. Read more »

The James Beard Award nominees went live this morning, and boy did NYC represent. Hometown heroes Drew Nieporent (outstanding restaurateur), Dan Barber (outstanding chef), David Chang and Scott Conant (both for best new restaurant) are all accounted for. Pichet Ong gets some too-little-too-late acknowledgment for P*ong in the outstanding pastry chef category, and Gabrielle Hamilton (Prune), Wylie Dufresne (WD-50), Michael Anthony (Gramercy Tavern), Terrance Brennan (Picholine) and Gabriel Kreuther (The Modern) are all up for best chef NYC.

Nods to Ruth Reichel and Alan Richman, who cleaned up with a handful of noms each, and to 2008 winner Grant Achatz, who could score again this year for his gorgeous cookbook, Alinea. (Of note: He’s up against his mentor, Thomas Keller, for Under Pressure: Cooking Sous Vide.)

For the full list of nominees, click here.

Raiding the fridge on Chopped!.

Last night’s episode of string cheese, jicama and gingersnaps featured some of the harshest criticism (save Gordo’s filthy tirades) that we’ve seen on any reality cooking show. A cantankerous Scott Conant was containing some serious anger  on Chopped!. He was joined at the judge’s table by Amanda Freitag and Geoffrey Zakarian. As for the contestants, there was Jonathan Jernigan of Catering by Jonathan; giant of a man Darius Peacock, executive chef of Exceptional Taste Catering; and executive chefs and business partners King Phojanakong of Kuma Inn and Phet Schwader, exec chef at Talay (which he runs with Phojanakong). Read more »

With a surprise batch of episodes airing every Tuesday until April 7 and a second season currently in production, Chopped! has proven it has staying power. And last night, it was all about quail, arctic char and beer. The contestants were Ralph Battista, executive chef at Butterfield 8; Abe Lopez of Pacifico in Center Valley, Pennsylvania; Lior Lev Sercarz of La Boîte à Epices; and Melinda Dorn, a chef whose “whole life has been leading up to this competition.” The judges for this episode were all vets of the show: Alex Guarnaschelli, Scott Conant, and Amanda Freitag—who was fresh from a hair-raising one-point loss to Bobby Flay on Iron Chef America last weekend. Read more »