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Chef2chef: Bistro Benefit - Bistro Benefit |
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Written by Erin Frustaci
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Wednesday, 09 August 2006 |
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Page 1 of 6 
At the tender age of 3, Florian Wehrli was the potato peeler of the household. His mother still has a picture of her little boy standing in the kitchen with his potatoes.
Now, 27 years later, Wehrli is the executive chef and co-owner of Chimney Park Bistro, the stylish and classy dining gem of Windsor. With flawless hardwood floors, red brick walls and uniform tables dressed in white tablecloths, the restaurant has a New York flare. But the plain white china and wine glasses gracefully resting on the tables add an element of simplicity.
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Xiaomei Chen/
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Florian Wehrli places wine in the storage room at Chimney Park Bistro. He is the executive chef and co-owner of the Windsor
bistro and organized the Chef2Chef
benefit dinner, which is now in its third year.
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“If you put too much shi-shi you don’t really get to taste the food,” he said in a thick Swiss-French accent. “The plates are not full of color because we want to showcase the food.”
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Florian Wehrli talks on the phone while meeting his staff Todd Hinton Aug. 3 at Chimney Park Bistro in Windsor.
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And with chefs flying in from in and out of the country for the third annual Chef2Chef
fund-raising event, Chimney Park Bistro will be on full display next week.
Participating chefs will travel to Windsor at their own expense to prepare an elaborate eight-course meal on Aug. 15. The event sold out before Wehrli even had a chance to advertise, with tickets at $150 per person.
“We sold 56 tickets, which is the number of chairs we have, plus two,” he said.
Last year, the fundraiser drew in $10,000 with proceeds going to the Chef2Chef Culinary Scholarship and Grant program. The program has awarded 24 $1,000 grants to students attending culinary schools throughout the United States since March 2004.
“We can’t possibly raise enough money to help everybody who needs it, but we are doing the best we can,” said David Nelson, co-founder of Chef2Chef.net. “Anything we can do to help make their lives a little easier and take away some stress is a good thing.”
Chef2Chef.net started as a hobby Web site for chefs and has grown into one of the leading culinary portals for professional and aspiring chefs. It’s based in Steamboat Springs and attracts 600,000 to 750,000 visitors a month.
Chefs from all over the world began sharing recipes, tips and stories through the Chef2Chef forum. The cyber community became so connected, they decided to all meet in person. They had such a great time, they decided to do it again. This is when Wehrli chimed in.
“I figured, let’s use that potential of having so many people in one place to do something good,” Wehrli said.
He volunteered to host the first event and has continued each year. The hope is that more restaurants around the country will decide to host similar events to generate even more money.
So far the idea has spread to Michigan, Virginia and Grand Junction.
“We would love to see them all over the world,” Nelson said.
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Inside of Chimney Park Bistro in Windsor.
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During these events, like the one that will take place at Chimney Park, each chef prepares a course — with a few teaming up — using donated ingredients. During the dinner, each chef will come out to the dining room and explain why they selected their dish.
“We like to give people knowledge that this food didn’t just come from a box,” Wehrli said. “If it is meat, it came from an animal that was alive and taken care of by a farmer. If it is a vegetable, someone had to water it. Eating is more than a pretty plate and a good taste.”
Bob Ballantyne, the chef de cuisine for The Cowboy and The Rose Catering in Grand Junction, will be preparing a fish dish. He has done his fair share of research while putting together his recipe.
“Anybody can make good food, but what you really need to do is limit yourself,” he said.
For his course, Ballantyne is only using ingredients that were available to the Anasazis.
“My feeling is people come to this type of event because it’s an event, not just dinner,” he said. “They are there to be entertained over a three hour period. The human brain likes to learn. By adding that component to the event, people respond to it.”
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