While the chilly weather outside belied the spring season, Food & Wine magazine celebrated its 25th anniversary and its Best New Chefs 2003 issue with a cheery, colorful party at the Chelsea Art Museum. The mag's senior promotion manager Melissa Lynch coordinated the event with Tinker Boe of Mood Food.
With more than 1,000 guests, the event started with a discreet, security-minded touch: After checking in, everyone received small metal Food & Wine-branded clips (made by Kraus & Sons)—the kind you wear at the museum after paying admission—to get inside the party.
Taking advantage of the space's white walls—"We were very lucky, because they were between installations," Lynch said—Boe created "food compositions" of rapidly shifting projections of food images like a creme brulee being torched and shots of apple orchards. "We didn't want it to look like a cooking show," Boe said, so the projections "were made to look like club videos." Some fun food-inspired decor installations included a large square of sod topped with a mound of dirt covered with goose eggs; ginger root scattered on the tables and floors and inside tall vases filled with ginger flowers; and tall vases filled with lemons and yellow forsythia branches. The front of the stark, white stage was lined with potted daffodils, keeping with the event's "Fresh for 25 Years" theme.
The second floor mezzanine was dotted with low, underlit cocktail tables set with gold fabric-draped seats. The third floor—where DJ Beverly Bond spun—offered more projection art and seating. Tasting tables from Nobu and Philadelphia restaurant Vetri occupied the third floor with Terrance Brennan's massive Artisanal cheese table.
Among the honored chefs were New York chefs Gabriel Kreuther of Atelier, the in-house restaurant at the Ritz-Carlton New York—Central Park, and Cornelius Gallagher, who took over the kitchen at Oceana after Rick Moonen departed to open RM.
—Suzanne Ito
With more than 1,000 guests, the event started with a discreet, security-minded touch: After checking in, everyone received small metal Food & Wine-branded clips (made by Kraus & Sons)—the kind you wear at the museum after paying admission—to get inside the party.
Taking advantage of the space's white walls—"We were very lucky, because they were between installations," Lynch said—Boe created "food compositions" of rapidly shifting projections of food images like a creme brulee being torched and shots of apple orchards. "We didn't want it to look like a cooking show," Boe said, so the projections "were made to look like club videos." Some fun food-inspired decor installations included a large square of sod topped with a mound of dirt covered with goose eggs; ginger root scattered on the tables and floors and inside tall vases filled with ginger flowers; and tall vases filled with lemons and yellow forsythia branches. The front of the stark, white stage was lined with potted daffodils, keeping with the event's "Fresh for 25 Years" theme.
The second floor mezzanine was dotted with low, underlit cocktail tables set with gold fabric-draped seats. The third floor—where DJ Beverly Bond spun—offered more projection art and seating. Tasting tables from Nobu and Philadelphia restaurant Vetri occupied the third floor with Terrance Brennan's massive Artisanal cheese table.
Among the honored chefs were New York chefs Gabriel Kreuther of Atelier, the in-house restaurant at the Ritz-Carlton New York—Central Park, and Cornelius Gallagher, who took over the kitchen at Oceana after Rick Moonen departed to open RM.
—Suzanne Ito
Food & Wine magazine's Best New Chefs 2003 awards filled the Chelsea Art Museum with candy-colored lights for a cheerful, springtime look.
Food-inspired decor included ginger root scattered on the tables and floors and inside tall vases filled with ginger flowers.
The front of the stark white stage was lined with potted daffodils.
Low, underlit cocktail tables paired with gold fabric-covered seats dotted the second floor mezzanine.
