Celebrity Chefs' Dinner #2: November 28, 2018

Delicious aromas, popping corks, and festive music were key ingredients for a vibrant atmosphere at the second Memphis Food & Wine Festival Celebrity Chefs’ Dinners November 28th at Interim Restaurant. This venue’s open kitchen offered the sold out crowd a great visual of a well-choreographed four-course meal.

"Dinner guest and Celebrity Chef's Dinner #3 (January 24, 2019 at Erling Jensen) sponsor Jonathan Ellichman summarized the atmosphere best - "the music – the people – there was an energy in the room. If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought I was in a bistro on the upper east side in NYC."

Host Chef David Krog worked alongside Guest Chef Dominic Orsini (Silver Oak Cellars Winery Chef, Napa Valley), visiting chef Jason Dallas (Spice Kitchen & Bar, Cleveland), and Interim chefs David Todd and Franck Oysel for this special culinary collaboration.

The menu included fall ratatouille on parmesan crisp, duck confit with pistachio and pomegranate gastrique, and grilled lamb strip loin with shaved fennel slaw and olive jus. Chef Oysel wowed guests with a beautifully plated hazelnut frangipane tart topped with candied chestnut mousse on a white chocolate crisp with blackberry compote and vingtage aged rhum chestnut cream.

Guest enjoyed each course with specially paired Silver Oak | Twomey wines. Special thanks go to sponsors Susan and Alan Graf for a tasteful evening.

MFWF benefits FedExFamilyHouse with each Celebrity Chefs’ Dinner and the main Memphis Food & Wine Festival - October 12, 2019 at Memphis Botanic Garden. “The FedExFamilyHouse is a very special place,” remarked Guest Chef Dominic Orsini. “ I am honored to support them and their mission.”

Featuring Celebrity Guest Chef

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Dominic Orsini

Winery Chef

Silver Oak Cellars | Napa Valley

Since taking the helm as Winery Chef at Napa Valley’s renowned Silver Oak Cellars in 2008, Dominic Orsini has transformed what it means to be a winery chef. With a philosophy centered on creating cuisine designed to enhance the enjoyment of wine, Dominic has expanded the approach by creating a style of cooking that embraces not just the wine, but also the wine country experience as a whole, focusing on the sense of place that is so central to the crafting of fine wine. As Silver Oak’s first Winery Chef, Dominic takes inspiration and ingredients from the seasons as well as the winery’s vineyards, cellars and gardens. He uses vine cuttings to smoke meats, cover crops to make pesto, leftover grape lees to make vincotto, Cabernet to make pâte de fruit, and barrel staves to fuel his wood-burning oven. Almost all of the produce he uses, including olives, herbs, fruits and vegetables, is grown in Silver Oak’s organic gardens. What he can’t use fresh he dries, cans or otherwise preserves. He grows heritage corn for his own polenta and grinds his own flour. The starter he uses for breads and pizza dough was created from 20-year old Cabernet vines on the winery property. With endless curiosity and enthusiasm for capturing both time and place in his menus, Dominic has pushed the boundaries of what it means to cook locally-grown food according to the season.

As part of his full-time duties leading the culinary program at Silver Oak, Dominic orchestrates the dining experience at the winery’s popular, twice-yearly Release Day celebrations, leading chefs from local restaurants such as Harvest Table, Morimoto, La Toque, TORC, Goose & Gander, and Farmstead in the design of custom food pairings around Silver Oak’s distinctive Cabernets.

Dominic is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America and a Level I Sommelier who honed his culinary skills at fine restaurants in New York and Napa Valley. His journey at Silver Oak is chronicled in his new book, The Silver Oak Cookbook: Life in a Cabernet Kitchen, published by Rizzoli and due out in the fall of 2016.

Host Chef

David Krog

Chef/Owner | Gallery

Born and raised in Tampa, FL, Chef Dave Krog discovered his love of cooking at an early age. Living with his grandmother, who was diabetic, David began to cook healthy meals for her and soon decided he wanted to become a Chef. After moving to Memphis, TN, at the age of 18, he worked in several different kitchens before enrolling in Memphis Culinary Academy. He then began an apprenticeship under Lynn Kennedy at La Tourelle. Following his apprenticeship, he became Sous Chef of La Tourelle and went on to be the Executive Chef at Madidi, owned by Actor Morgan Freeman and Attorney Bill Luckett, in Clarksdale, MS.

Returning to Tennessee in 2005, David has held positions at Bari, The Tennessean, Erling Jensen's The Restaurant, Terrace at River Inn, and as Executive Chef at Interim Restaurant & Bar. He considers himself a Neo Traditionalist, with an emphasis on using as many locally sourced ingredients as possible. Krog has been the recipient of several awards, such as the Great Southern Food Festival Best New National Chef 2001, and the United Cerebral Palsy Silver Spatula Award for Best Appetizer, and has also been featured in Southern Living Magazine, Bon Appetite, Food and Wine, At Home Tennessean, Memphis Commercial Appeal, Memphis Flyer, 4Memphis Magazine, New York Magazine and on Food Network's Best Of and was recently recognized by the Kemmons Wilson School of Hospitality & Resort Management for Outstanding Service.

With a heavy heart, he left Interim to devote his time to opening his own restaurant. While in pursuit of his dream and working as a private chef in many of your homes, the idea for his pop-up, Gallery, was born. Krog’s pop-up is gaining a national following, and has been a destination for couples as far as 250 miles away, including food enthusiasts @wheres.the.food.mike.

Local/Visiting Chefs

Jason Dallas – Chef, Spice Kitchen & Bar (Cleveland, OH)

A native Memphian, Chef Dallas graduated from Germantown High School and attended the University of Memphis to study graphic design. Fortunately for the restaurant industry, he decided to pursue a career as a chef, earning a Culinary Arts degree from The Restaurant School of Walnut Hill College in Philadelphia, PA. While attending culinary school, Dallas interned at the Ritz Carlton but one his most influential culinary experiences was a tour of France with Chef Jean Marie Lacroix, the James Beard Award winning chef that made Fountain Restaurant at the Four Seasons Hotel Philadelphia and Lacroix at The Rittenhouse Hotel famous. Dallas toured the French countryside, Champagne, Burgundy, Beaune, and Paris with Lacroix, learning about wine making, cheese making, and charcuterie.

In 2002, Chef Dallas moved to Seattle and began working at The Herb Farm under another James Beard Award winner, Chef Jerry Traunfeld. In 2011, he returned to Memphis to take the coveted position of Head Chef at The Peabody’s “Chez Phillipe” alongside Executive Chef Andreas Kisler. Before moving to his current residence in Ohio, he was the Head (Executive) Chef at Interim.

In Cleveland, Chef Dallas joined The Fairmont Olympic Hotel, a Forbes Five-Star hotel that opened in 1924, as Chef Garde Manager and then Restaurant Chef under Chef Gavin Stephson. Later, he became Executive Chef at Sorrento Hotel, a boutique luxury hotel that opened in 1909. He currently is a Chef at the exclusive Spice Kitchen & Bar in Cleveland, Ohio.

Franck Oysel – Executive Pastry Chef, Interim

Born and raised in France, Franck has been working in classic French pâtisserie with Master Chefs since he was 15 years old. Franck has cultivated a rich passion for sharing the culinary arts — by teaching others — as well as producing refined and balanced products. In 2006 Franck became the Executive Chef de Pâtisserie with a Master Chocolatier at one of the popular pâtisseries in the Jura region of France, Aux Plaisirs Sucrés. In 2014, Franck moved to America, following the love of his life, an American who taught English in France and volunteered at the pâtisserie. Franck is the executive Pastry Chef at Interim where the importance of producing high quality dishes that appeal to all of the senses is emphasized.