All-Star Chef Classic

Ok, at this price point, you don’t discuss if it was worth it or not. You can argue that you can have at least 2 chef’s counter meals at Napa Rose or the Chef’s tasting menu at Providence, or, or, or… And being in a controlled kitchen, it most likely will be better than what these amazing All Star Chefs have to work with trying to provide 5 courses for 256 people served at the same time. But, it was a heck of a fun night and a wonderful experience, that I suggest every foodie who has a budget to do such things, try once.
This year the 4 night event produced by Chef Ludo Lefebvre features a French Masters Dinner, American Masters Dinner, British Masters Dinner, and finally a Grill and Chill tasting featuring 20 chefs. «Restaurant Stadium» is set up in a tent on the event deck of LA Live. It’s a theater in the round with 3 tiers of stadium seats surrounding a kitchen. Large video screens show live feeds with an emcee interviewing chefs as they work, combined with prerecorded interviews of celebrity chefs discussing each of their techniques and style. It’s like walking into your television during an episode of Top Chef, and tasting the food. While it’s not a competition, it’s clear that each of these chefs do not want to be outdone by the other. However they are working in harmony to create a multi course dinner for the evening.
I attended the French Master’s Dinner, featuring Inaki Aizpitarte — Le Chateaubriand (Paris), Sven Chartier — Saturne (Paris), David Toutain — Restaurant David Toutain (Paris), Dominique Crenn — Atelier Crenn (San Francisco), and Ludo Lefebvre — Trois Mec (LA). This event was as smooth as could be from start to finish. It began with five different canapés being passed around. David Toutain (who was doing the dessert course) absolutely knocked it out of the park with his Beetroot Canapé. This was a wafer thin crispy tube made from beetroot, filled with a mousse of eel (I assume smoked), blackberry, and beetroot, which combined in a perfect harmony of smokey, savory, and sweet. Then having the texture of the crunchy almost candy like shell was fabulous and allowed the flavors to explode as it was eaten in one bite.
Once inside and comfortably seated, we watched the army of chefs plating away each course along side each chef.
1^st Course by Dominique Crenn — Scallop, pear, sesame seeds, sea cucumber dashi. This was pure perfection as a raw scallop, thinly sliced, was enhanced beautifully by the other flavors. The Dashi made from sea cucumber was a light savory broth that tasted like the sea, worked perfectly against the sweetness of the scallop and pear. Interesting choice to start a French Chef dinner off with Asian influence.
2^nd Course by Inaki Aizpitarte — Smoked Beef Tartare, purslane, sea lettuce chips. This was the most creative course of the night. The beef tartare was chopped on the thick side, giving it a Poke tuna consistency, it was smoked with thyme and rosemary. The sea lettuce made for a very nice thin chip and provided the flavor of the sea to pair against the beef, while adding a nice crunch. Also hiding beneath the chips were pickled shallots, red currants, and watercress. There was also some of these chips ground up into powder and sprinkled over the dish. I found that it was best to remove all the chips and build your own combination, so you had the right ratio of everything in each bite. I believe placing them on top, was only to keep them crisp. His food is playful, and deconstructing and reconstructing seemed totally acceptable to me.
3^rd Course by Sven Chartier — King Salmon, beef juice, burnt onions, licorice, sunchoke chips. This is one of the most interesting preparations of salmon I’ve ever had. Absolutely delicious. It was almost raw, but yet had the consistency of a Nova smoked salmon, without any of the smoke flavor. I asked the Chef afterward how he accomplished the texture. It was brined for 4 hours then slowly baked at 150 to heat up. Keeping with the surf and turf theme of the prior course, this one was inverse, as the beef flavor accented the fish via an au jus. The burnt onion marmalade and sunchoke chips added sweetness, earthiness, and crunch.
4^th Course by Ludo Lefebvre — Lamb Belly, Avocado, Buckwheat Tabouli, Mint Tea Gelee. I loved the flavor of this dish, but it was hard to get past the chewiness of the Lamb Belly (Lamb breast). It is naturally tough and must be cooked slowly. If I guessed he first braised the lamb to get a crust and then cooked it sous vide to get it medium rare. It should have cooked for 24 – 48 hours, perhaps he ran out of time. Everything around the lamb was great.
5^th Course by David Toutain –Chocolate Textures with Marjoram Ice Cream. If you love chocolate, then this is your dish to explore it in all of it’s wonderful forms, mousse, ganache, cake, truffle, sauce… dark, milk, praline, hazelnut… It was a great way to end a meal. Please click on my photos if you want to drool!

I must say Ludo Lefebvre, his wife Krissy and Lucy Lean did a great job organizing this three day event of star chefs coming from all around the world. I was mainly focused on night one with the french chefs dinner featuring:
Alain Passarf of L’Arpege in Paris
Marc Meneau of L’Esperance in Vezelay
Inaki Aizpitarte of Chateaubriand in Paris
Ludo Lefebvre of Trois Mec in Los Angeles
Florian Bellanger of Mad Mac in New York City
There are few times when you will see this many star chefs cooking for you in one place and for me to get to LA is way cheaper than tix to LA, NYC, Paris, and Vezelay
6 Dishes in a «Restaurant Stadium» built out on the Event Deck of LA Live. It was pretty phenomenal. I understand in the subsequent days, there were more low key events with still a stunning array of chefs from around the country. I eagerly anticipating in hopes that the rumors of next year, with master chefs from Japan emerges. I think the best way for me to describe this even is through the photos.

This was a food festival of sorts… A jam packed 3 day event featuring celebrity chefs, cooking demos, samples and a very generous bar! The VIP tickets purchased by my aunt as a special treat for us were $ 85 each (this was for Sunday, the last day.) We got there right at 11, for our «one hour early VIP entry». We hit the bar right away, then hit up each chefs «station» to see what they were offering. It was Melissa’s Produce day, so everything was very veg and salad centric. I got to meet Nancy Silverton, who I have admired for a long time. And got to say, «Hi» to Graham who I was recently introduced to on Master Chef. I like him. He made a Caesar salad, I think… it’s a bit fuzzy from all the trips to the bar…(we walked home!!)
Chef Silverton’s Kale salad was also really good. We had a little ahi bite and a few more bites, it’s very fuzzy… I guess we missed the demo part of it all… I don’t really know how, but I know it was supposed to last until 2:30. I kept waiting for them to usher us into the «Kitchen Satdium»… around 1:00 I just walked in there and they were all shuting down… I think Friday and Saturday were the best days for this part of it. I would be a little bummed to pay $ 85 if it werent for the, you guessed it… BAR! They had Stella Cidre, some Rose, Red wine, ahhh… what else… I think I tried everything except the Red. I had fun with my aunt and her friend which is a priceless experience! She is a professional Personal Chef and ended up making one of the salads for her client the next week! She rocks! What a treat, and we could walk from and back to my loft, and she rode the train in from Santa Clarita! Win! Win! Win!
Amazing day that started with pupusas at the Grand Central Market and ended with drinks at L.A. Market, markets sandwiched by this friendly and relaxed event! I enjoyed chatting with the chefs, wish I would have gotten more/​better pictures, but that dang bar!!! I hope they have this event again next year, we’ll be there!