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Tenney
Flynn
Executive
Chef - GW Fins
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Growing up in his father’s
restaurant in Stone Mountain, Georgia, Tenney
Flynn developed an innate understanding of Southern
food, its traditions and hard work associated
with the restaurant business. This experience
not only served as an informal training ground
for Tenney, it also sparked a keen interest in
the culinary arts, especially cooking. After spending
many weeknights and summers in the kitchen with
his father, Tenney’s thirst for increasing
food knowledge and exposure to different cuisines,
cooking techniques and styles of food lead him
to the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in
Hyde Park, New York. With a degree in hand and
his formal training now behind him, Tenney’s
horizons had no boundaries.
Flynn officially began his fine dining career
with Atlanta’s esteemed Buckhead Life Restaurant
Group, starting as a cook and leaving as a chef.
His tenure with Buckhead Life included stints
at such famed restaurants as Pano’s and
Paul’s, The Atlanta Fishmarket at Lenox
and finally, as Executive Chef of Chops. Upon
hearing of his dedication, ability and commitment
to perfection, Ruth’s Chris Steak House
recruited his talents for its company as the Director
of Culinary Operations. During his seven years
there, one of the main lessons he learned from
the experience was: only work with the finest
and freshest products available, in season. While
heading the culinary operations at the venerable
Ruth’s Chris chain, Flynn met another person
who shared this commitment to working with only
the best products at their peak times, his current
partner Gary Wollerman.
Then the Chief Operating Officer for Ruth’s
Chris, Gary Wollerman possessed the same beliefs
and ideals as Chef Tenney Flynn when it came to
running restaurants. He also knew first-hand Flynn’s
skills, expertise and true passion for working
with seafood. The two Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse
veterans realized a dream and an obsession for
seafood with the opening of their own restaurant
GW Fins, in March of 2001.
In GW Fins, Flynn and Wollerman provided New Orleans
with its first upscale seafood restaurant. Flynn
commonly refers to GW Fins as “a Prime Seafood
House” offering guests the absolute finest
and freshest seafood available from all corners
of the world. Whether it is Dover Sole from Holland,
Goeduck Clams from Oregon or Turbot from Chilé
diners have the opportunity to sample premium
quality seafood from around the world including
those species found in their own backyard. Thus,
many of Louisiana’s unique seafood products
indigenous to the area such as pompano, white
shrimp, blue crab and blue fin tuna are also featured
prominently on GW Fins’ menu, when in season.
“My culinary philosophy is simple. If you
are working with seafood that already has wonderful
flavor, the cooking techniques should enhance
the flavors rather than overwhelm them,”
states Flynn. “I draw on the experience
I have obtained through working for several high
quality restaurants to prepare seafood in a way
that showcases its optimal flavor and textures.”
Chef Flynn goes on to say, “The most exciting
aspect of running the kitchen at GW Fins is working
with our purveyors to source the best quality
seafood for our guests. Each morning I am on the
phone finding out who has the freshest product
available today from around the globe, as well
as right here in Louisiana.” These commitments
to quality and to the guest are just some of the
reasons GW Fins prints its menu daily.
Chef Tenney Flynn’s expertise has not gone
unnoticed. GW Fins opened to thundering applause
in 2001, being named as one of Esquire magazine’s
“Best New Restaurants.” Additional
accolades continued from the national and local
press alike, including but not limited to: Travel
& Leisure, The New York Times, Food &
Wine, The Times Picayune, Southern Living, the
Zagat guide and local critic Tom Fitzmorris. Especially
noteworthy is Tenney Flynn being unanimously named
as the “2004 Chef of the Year” by
New Orleans magazine.
A combination of the overwhelming acceptance of
GW Fins, and a longing for some of the flavors
of his Georgia youth, culminated into another
restaurant concept and partnership for Wollerman
and Flynn. In February of 2004, ZydeQue Cajun
Barbecue opened its doors in the French Quarter
around the corner from GW Fins. At ZydeQue, Flynn
began with the techniques and tastes from his
early days of cooking with his father and combined
them with native Louisiana techniques and flavors
to create an original style of barbecue –
Cajun Barbecue.
The highest quality chicken, beef, pork and andouille
sausage is selected by Flynn who then applies
a dry rub marinade of authentic Cajun spices.
Next he slowly smokes these over hickory and pecan.
Finally, once the meat is crunchy and brown on
the outside and tender and moist on the inside,
it is ready for ZydeQue’s mouth watering
barbecue sauce. Made with cane syrup and cane
vinegar, the sauce gets its heat from a mixture
of South Louisiana peppers.
To Flynn’s credit, ZydeQue has also garnered
the attention of the national and local press,
not to mention the now barbecue crazed local New
Orleanians. After being named in 2004 as “The
Best New Barbecue Restaurant in America”
by Esquire magazine, ZydeQue’s consistent
delivery of original, tasty barbecue most recently
captured the interest of Bon Appétit who
in its March 2005 issue named ZydeQue as “One
of America’s Hottest Tables.”
Executive Chef Tenney Flynn enjoys spending time
with his teenage son Michael, whom he often brings
into the kitchen with him at GW Fins and ZydeQue,
just as he father did with him. When not busy
in his restaurants, Flynn’s hobbies include
fishing, gardening, running and cooking at his
New Orleans home.
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Todd
Gray
Executive
Chef/Co-Owner - Equinox
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Since opening Equinox in
1999 to universal acclaim, Todd Gray has emerged
as one of the surest culinary talents in the nation’s
capital, as well as a tireless champion of sustainable
farming and fishing practices, and a passionate
promoter of local, mid-Atlantic foods. Gray practices
what he preaches every day, and Equinox is widely
acclaimed as an oasis of sophisticated yet unpretentious
seasonal cuisine.
Gray’s cooking has earned him five nominations
for the prestigious Best Chef, Mid-Atlantic award
from the James Beard Foundation. He also is a
four-time nominee for Chef of the Year from the
Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington.
Equinox has consistently been rated one of the
city’s top restaurants by The Washington
Post and Washingtonian, and has appeared on numerous
“best of” lists in national epicurean
magazines. Equinox has achieved Wine Spectator’s
Award of Excellence six years in a row, and was
recently recognized with the Award of Excellence
from the Distinguished Restaurants of North America
(DiRoNa).
With his wife and business partner, Ellen Kassoff
Gray, Gray co-chaired Share Our Strength’s
Taste of the Nation fundraiser to fight hunger
in Washington, DC for four years, increasing the
event’s public profile and galvanizing the
support of a broad range of local restaurants.
They designed A Sugar & Champagne Affair which
has raised funds in Washington, DC and New York
for humane law enforcement. They are leading advocates
for sustainable fisheries management as well as
humane treatment of farm animals, and were among
the first restaurateurs to commit to the use of
Certified Humane meats. The Grays are especially
proud of their son Harrison, born shortly after
the restaurant opened. He has admirable kitchen
skills for a six-year-old and has been the inspiration
for Equinox’s cooking classes for kids.
Gray regularly offers hands-on cooking classes
for all ages, and is a guest instructor at L’Academie
de Cuisine, the Washington area’s premier
professional cooking school.
Gray has served as culinary consultant to several
outside organizations, including the United States
Supreme Court, the International Trade Center
in the Ronald Reagan Building, and the Sports
Club, LA - Washington, DC. Gray is working with
entrepreneur and philanthropist Dr. Sheila Johnson
in Middleburg, Virginia as executive chef of Market
Salamander and culinary director for Salamander
Inn & Spa, which is currently under development.
As a native of Fredericksburg, Virginia, Gray’s
culinary sensibilities owe much to the foods of
the Chesapeake Bay watershed and the Blue Ridge
valleys. While waiting tables as an undergraduate
art student at the University of Richmond, Gray
decided to shift his career focus to the culinary
arts. He didn’t have to go far from home
to begin his classical European training, working
under Christian Renault at La Petite Auberge,
a landmark restaurant in Fredericksburg. He completed
his formal education at the Culinary Institute
of America in Hyde Park, New York, then interned
in some of the country's best kitchens including
L’Orangerie, Citrus, and Patina.
In Washington, Gray spent four years with Master
Chef Robert Greault at the legendary French restaurant,
La Colline. Seven years with Chef Roberto Donna
at the city’s premier Italian restaurant,
Galileo, gave Gray a solid grounding in the traditions
of the Italian Piedmont. Gray eventually became
Galileo's first and only American chef de cuisine.
While he held that position, Galileo won the James
Beard Award for Best Restaurant, Mid-Atlantic.
Introductions from Donna opened the doors to stages,
or culinary apprenticeships, in the same Northern
Italian restaurants where Donna himself had trained.
Gray also had the privilege to be one of the last
chefs to stage in the kitchen of the late Jean-Louis
Palladin at the Watergate. Even today, Gray continues
his culinary development through stages with this
country’s greatest contemporary chefs such
as Daniel Boulud and Thomas Keller.
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Heinz
Lauer - BS, CEC, CCE, CFBE, CCP
Executive
Chef - Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts Las
Vegas
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Chef Heinz Lauer has over
30 years of experience in the hospitality industry.
Beginning his formal training at age 14, as a
culinary apprentice at the exclusive Brenner's
Park Hotel located in Baden-Baden in Germany’s
Black Forest. Lauer’s career has taken him
throughout Germany and the United States as well
as the Caribbean. He's worked as an Executive
Chef and as Food & Beverage Manager of such
highly acclaimed establishments as the popular
Dorint Park Hotel in Germany and on ships of the
Norwegian Cruise Lines and Royal Caribbean Cruise
Lines.
Lauer, who has cooked for numerous celebrities
including the former German Chancellor Helmut
Kohl, singer Gloria Estefan, Robin Leach (Lifestyles
of the Rich And Famous) and comedian Jerry Lewis
literally grew up in the hotel and restaurant
business. His parents owned and operated three
restaurants in Germany's Rhine Valley.
After leaving the cruise line industry, Chef Lauer
took on the position of Executive Sous Chef and
Chef Instructor at the prestigious California
Culinary Academy in San Francisco where he taught
courses in Basic Skills, European Cuisine and
Consumer Education.
Chef Lauer holds a Bachelor of Science in Hotel/Restaurant
Management and is recognized as a Certified Executive
Chef by the American Culinary Federation and as
a Certified Culinary Educator by the German Government;
a Certified Food and Beverage Executive by the
American Hotel and Lodging Association; and a
Certified Culinary Professional by the International
Association of Culinary Professionals.
Recently he was awarded the World Gourmet Summit
America Founders trophy and was inducted to the
World Gourmet Club.
Chef Lauer is the host of “The Chefs Table”;
a weekly radio talk show where he interviews Chefs
from Las Vegas life on the air.
Before joining Le Cordon Bleu Las Vegas, he held
the position of Director of Food Operations for
the Las Vegas Club Hotel & Casino.
He serves on the Board of Directors of the ACF
Chefs of Las Vegas, participates in the Chef for
Kids breakfasts and is the Treasurer for Chefs
for Kids, is an active member of the Food &
Beverage Directors Association of Nevada and finds
time to contribute on the Educational Committee
of the Nevada Restaurant Association.
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He is also a member of the Verband der Koeche
Deutschlands (German Chefs Association).
Chef Lauer was Las Vegas Chef of the Year 2004.
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Al
Levinsohn
Executive
Chef/Owner - Kincaid Grill
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Chef Al Levinsohn was born
in Southern California and raised in the Seattle
area before moving to Alaska. He began his career
working for Seattle area Hotels in the late 70’s
where he was promoted to his first Sous Chef position
at age 18.
With Al’s passion for food, the outdoors
and desire to move to Alaska his dream became
reality when he began working at the Crow’s
Nest Restaurant in 1984 under the direction of
Chef Jens Haagen Hansen. In 1986 at the age of
23 Chef Al was hired on as Executive Chef to open
the Clarion Hotel Anchorage. During his eight
year tenure with the Clarion and Regal Alaskan
Hotel, Chef Al was given a great opportunity to
excel his culinary & management experience.
In 1994, Chef Al moved on to open the Alyeska
Prince Hotel and Resort as Executive Sous Chef.
In 1996, two years after the Hotel opened Al was
offered the task of developing the menu concept,
and implementing the kitchen set up of Anchorage’s
flagship brew pub, the Glacier Brewhouse. In the
summer of 1996 after opening and operating the
Glacier Brewhouse, Chef Al was soon given an opportunity
to return to Alyeska as the Executive Chef overseeing
all the resorts food outlets including the famed
four Diamond restaurant The Seven Glaciers.
In January of 2003 Chef Al’s dream of having
his own restaurant came true, opening the Kincaid
Grill.Through out Chef Al’s career he has
built up his list of accomplishments to include
the following:
• Five time AAA Four Diamond Award, Seven
Glaciers Restaurant
• Professional cooking experience in Hong
Kong, Singapore, Bangkok & Pusan Korea.
• Certified food and beverage Executive
through the American Hotel Motel Association
• Television appearances on local channels
as well as the food network
• Guest Chef at the James Beard House in
New York City 1999
• Gold medal winner, Alaska seafood challenge
1989
• Bronze medal winner, National Seafood
Challenge Charleston S.C.1989
• Two time winner, one pot cookery competition
U.A.A.1998,1999
• Chef Rotisseur Confrerie de la Chaine
des Rotisseurs 1998
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