Try dishes from the hottest restaurants during October’s ChefsFeed Indie Week
Rebecca Wilcomb, the chef at New Orleans’ Herbsaint, won the James Beard award for “Best Chef: South” in 2017, and she’ll be cooking for ticketed dinners that will feature a dozen visiting and Pittsburgh chefs at Cure in Lawrenceville on Thursday, Oct. 11, Friday, Oct. 12 and Sunday, Oct. 14.
It’s all part of ChefsFeed Indie Week, an event coming to town with Grover Smith at the helm: The founder has shaped the event to focus on building kitchen camaraderie for chefs, particularly across under-the-radar restaurant cities. Mr. Smith hopes that Pittsburghers — like residents of Richmond, Va., Austin, Texas, and New Orleans, where he’s orchestrated past Indie Weeks — will want to try cooking from chefs generating buzz from restaurants around the country, right in their own community.
Ms. Wilcomb has helped Herbsaint anchor one of New Orleans’ 10 best restaurants since it opened in the early 2000s.
“In the grand tradition of great restaurants that point to the future on opening day and then stick around, the menu is both a workin-progress and a testament to the wisdom of not fixing what ain’t broke,” said Times-Picayune critic Brett Anderson, who wrote about the place.
The Pittsburgh event also will include chefs Jeremy Fox of LA wine destination Rustic Canyon and the ambitious Claudette Zepeda-Wilkins of El Jardin in San Diego. Houston makes a showing with Justin Yu of Theodore Rex — one of Texas Monthly’s Best Restaurants of 2018 — and Ross Coleman with restaurant partner James Haywood of Kitchen 713, touted for its menu of global influences.
Zachary Meloy of Atlanta’s Better Half and Elliott Moss of Asheville, N.C.’s Buxton Hall Barbecue join Ms. Wilcomb in representing the South. Daniel Eddy of Philadelphia’s Walnut Street Cafe is also cooking, along with a to-be-named chef who will be announced closer to the event.
Past IndieFeed participant Justin Severino, along with Hilary Severino Prescott of Cure, are hosting the festivities, with Pittsburgh chefs Csilla Thackray of The Vandal in Lawrenceville, and Trevett Hooper of Legume, Butterjoint and the new Pie for Breakfast in Oakland joining him.
ChefsFeed Indie Week is timed to coincide with the reopening of Cure following a monthlong closure to complete a top-to-bottom renovation.
Tickets are $165 for the weekday dinners and $195 for Sunday’s supper for the six-course dinners with wine pairings.