Celebrity Chef Tour debuts in SF

Santa Fe chef Martín Rios is shown with his wife Jennifer Rios in 2009 during renovation of the building that became Restaurant Martín. (Eddie Moore/Albuquerque Journal)

Next month, foodies will be able to sample cuisine created by some of the best chefs from St. Louis, Phoenix, San Antonio, Denver and Salt Lake City – all without setting foot outside Santa Fe.

The Celebrity Chef Tour, a fundraising project for the James Beard Foundation, is making its first appearance in New Mexico on April 18 at Restaurant Martín in Santa Fe. They will produce a seven-course meal, with each course accompanied by a suitable wine.

“We are just thrilled to be doing this first-time event (for New Mexico),” said Jennifer Rios, co-owner of the restaurant with her husband and chef, Martín Rios. “It will promote Santa Fe as a culinary destination.”

	If you go WHAT: Celebrity Chef Tour WHERE: Restaurant Martín, 526 Galisteo St. WHEN: 6:30 p.m. April 18 HOW MUCH: $175 per person for a seven-course meal accompanied by wines BENEFITS: The James Beard Foundation RESERVATIONS: 820-0919 or www.restaurantmartinsantafe.com

All the guest chefs – along with the restaurant’s own chef – have been previously named semi-finalists in the James Beard Foundation’s category of best regional chef. Most of them are from the Southwest region, but Kevin Nashan, of Sidney Street Café in St. Louis, was added despite being in the Midwest region because he grew up in Santa Fe and his family owned the former La Tertulia restaurant for 27 years.

As a matter of fact, Nashan helped familiarize the couple with the Celebrity Chef Tour by inviting Martín Rios to participate in one as a guest chef last May in St. Louis. “It was our first experience with the tour,” Jennifer Rios said. “It’s a great experience for a chef. They work all the time. There’s so little time to learn from each other.”

And it looks to be a pretty rare experience for the diner – at least one who can part with $175 to spend an evening eating. Here’s a look at what to expect:

♦ Frank Bonanno of Bonanno Restaurant Concepts in Denver, who marries classic French techniques with American simplicity, is handling the first course: a lobster BLT.

♦ The second course comes from Bowman Brown, who develops nature-based cuisine at Forage in Salt Lake City. Its focus is elk tartare smoked with spruce.

♦ Bruce Auden, of Biga on the Banks in San Antonio, is presenting “jerked seared scallop on cheesey Texas grits” for the third course.

♦ Pork cheek and belly with a horseradish-cider glaze comes next from Kevin Binkley, who uses “gastronaut techniques” at Binkley’s Restaurant in Phoenix.

♦ Nashan, influenced by time in New Mexico, France and Spain, will produce a lamb porchetta with Anasazi bean ragout.

♦ And the host chef is handling canapes, pre-dessert and dessert, with choices including everything from “rhubarb savory marshmallow” to “pastrami salmon” to “sweet and salty popcorn.”

All of these courses are described with many more ingredients not listed here. And some may be tweaked beyond this initial listing.

“It is a lot of work,” Jennifer Rios said of the project. She’s been getting the word out about the event, organizing donations from local hotels for rooms for the chefs and wines to go with the dinner, and more.

She expects the event will raise about $6,000 for the James Beard Foundation, which, according to its website, is a nonprofit organization whose mission is “to celebrate, nurture and preserve America’s diverse culinary heritage and future.”

The single seating of a maximum 125 people for the event already is 60 to 70 percent sold, Rios estimated. The Santa Fe School of Cooking also is hosting a reception the evening before with canapés and sparkling wine for the chefs and the diners, giving guests more time to mingle with the chefs, she said.

And Rios seemed undaunted by the fact that the kitchen of Restaurant Martín, which normally has “four guys cooking and two washing dishes,” will be flooded with some 20 people to prepare this meal.

That doesn’t count serving staff.

“It’s a team-building experience with chefs from the highest level,” she said. “There’s like a high afterwards.”