Results tagged “topchef”

The November issue of Pasadena Magazine has a cover star who, until recently, was more of a behind the scenes kind of guy, despite the often cocky swagger and 'tude. It's Chef Michael Voltaggio, who took over Chef de Cuisine duties this summer for The Dining Room, the swanky old-school restaurant at the Langham that's been turned upside down by Voltaggio's cheeky and innovative style of cuisine. LAist was lucky enough to be invited to sample Voltaggio's fare just days before the current season of Top Chef debuted on Bravo; on the show you'll see Voltaggio battling it out for honors with none other than his big brother Bryan.

Former Top Chef contender Fabio Viviani has left his Moorpark restaurant and moved quickly into a new spot, Firenze Osteria. The eatery has taken over the North Hollywood space formerly occupied by Barsac Brasserie, and underwent a quick turnaround to transform the restaurant. Now in a "soft-open" phase, Firenze Osteria is set to officially open this Saturday, with a public (with RSVP) cocktail reception, and the phone line is up and accepting reservations starting at 7:45 p.m.

             

Chef Stefan Richter, known for his commitment to his meticulous yet simply prepared food, has a big personality. On Top Chef he was the smack-talking half of team Europe with Fabio Viviani. Later this month Viviani will open Firenze Osteria in North Hollywood. In August, Richter opened Stefan's L.A. Farm at the Lantana Center in Santa Monica. The restaurant is drawing large lunch crowds for the salads and burgers (more than one diner has declared it "better than Father's Office") and for dinner and drinks in a relaxed atmosphere.

In spite of the occasionally cringe-worthy dishes on Top Chef and the bumbling and blubbering of Hell's Kitchen, you know you're insanely jealous of those judges. Well, now you have the opportunity to eat like the judges--yes, even the actual recipes they picked apart like bits of carrion on the small screen.

Speaking of death: Today news producer Don Hewitt died. Hewitt was the creator of CBS' "60 Minutes", a program that changed the way news was reported and set the high bar for all other news programs to follow. Perhaps only PBS' "Frontline" has come close to the standard. And hey, it's still a popular show getting the 2nd most viewership this week. For more on Hewitt, check out a series of interviews with him on the Archive of American Television's YouTube channel. RIP Don.

The "supersized" sixth season premiere of Top Chef airs tonight at 9 on Bravo. 17 new contestants will be battling it out at The M Resort Spa & Casino in Vegas this season, including local culinary rising star Michael Voltaggio. Padma Lakshmi returns to preside over the judges' table alongside head judge Tom Colicchio, and judges Gail Simmons and Toby Young. Guests this season will include Wolfgang Puck, Todd English, Natalie Portman, Penn & Teller, Hubert Keller and Nigella Lawson.

            

There might be models of ships ensconced in the walls of the Langham's Dining Room restaurant that reflect a bygone era, but there's a young tattooed man on the cutting edge of cuisine in the kitchen. His name is Michael Voltaggio, and he arrived at the beautiful historic hotel in Pasadena just this July, following a year working as Executive Chef of The Bazaar by Jose Andres in Beverly Hills. Tonight, he'll be in your living room (or bedroom, perhaps)--no, he's not making house calls, he happens to be (along with his older brother, Bryan) a contestant on Bravo's 6th season of Top Chef.

The Dining Room is the fine dining restaurant located within the The Langham, Huntington Hotel & Spa. Not only are they a great "special occasion" dinner destination, but they can boast something pretty unique: A one-star rating from the coveted Michelin Guide (it's the only hotel-run restaurant in Los Angeles with one). Now the restaurant is prepping for their new Chef de Cuisine's menu, which will debut on July 31st.

It looks like Andy Richter will be returning to the side of Conan O'Brien when he fires up his version of "The Tonight Show" starting on June 1st. Richter will be the announcer for the show and will appear in comedy sketches but it's not clear if he will be a fixture on the guest couch a la Ed McMahon. Now that the Academy Awards are over with and Conan has shut down production, late night TV is a wasteland this week other than Jimmy Kimmel.

Last week we went to a sneak preview of Demetri Martin's new show on Comedy Central, "Important Things With Demetri Martin", which premiere's tonight at 10:30pm. The show has been in the works since last Spring so we are happy to see it make it on air.

Truth is stranger than fiction - or life imitates fiction? Something like that: Anna Torv and Mark Valley, the stars of FOX's "Fringe", have married in real life. Fringe also did pretty good in yesterday's Nielsen numbers, with a 10+% increase in viewership over last week, but that increase is getting attributed to the popularity of its lead in, "American Idol".

Sir Paul McCartney will pay a visit to Comedy Central's "The Colber(t) Repor(t)" tonight - we're wondering if Colber(t) will succeed in performing a song with yet another famous musician. [Also Colber(t)-related is his latest "remix challenge", so all you audio-tweakers should check out the details here.]

We're shattered over the death of Emmy-award winner Patrick McGoohan who died yesterday in LA at the age of 80. McGoohan made his first mark on TV in the series "Danger Man" (released in the US as "Secret Agent") and won his two Emmy awards for his work on Peter Falk's "Colombo" which he acted in, produced, directed, and wrote several episodes.

HBO has acquired the exclusive rights to air Barack Obama's inauguration kick-off events on January 18th. The actual inauguration ceremony will be carried by several outlets but the 90+ minutes of live performances preceding the ceremony will exclusively belong to HBO. In 1993, paid $1.5 million to air the performances preceding Bill Clinton's inauguration but unlike that year, HBO says it will provide access to all viewers and not just HBO subscribers.

The holidays are over, the merriment has ceased, and that means that reality now rears its ugly head. It's time to make resolutions to be better this year than we were last year, or any other year, or ever will be in the future. For a lot of us, this means promises to get healthy. Well, LAist believes in you, and so for the month of January, we'll be running articles on health, wellness, and fitness to help make sure those promises aren't empty. Good luck, and godspeed. - Health Editor, Jessica Pauline

Remember how we mentioned that Jack Black will be on the post-Super Bowl episode of "The Office"? He will also have Jessica Alba, and America's new dance sensation, Cloris Leachmen as company at Dunder Mifflin.

Lately it's been all about the 3-D, and lately it's been all about anything Turner-flavored (they seem to be pumping out new shows on TNT and TBS every other day), so naturally the two must meet. On February 14th, because they love you, TNT will team up with Cinedigm to broadcast TNT's coverage of "NBA All-Star Saturday Night" in 3-D to 160+/- theaters in 35 states. If only they chose a real game, then we'd be a bit more interested.

TNT is pulling out all the stops for its launch of their Timothy Hutton-driven action-thriller series "Leverage" (premieres on Sunday 12/07 @ 9:00pm). They've got a major press tour (more on that, Friday) and they're even launching an online game on Sunday where players can win $100,000. We haven't seen an effort this coordinated in a while.

While we're still recovering from last night's fantastic series finale of "The Shield" we can still open our eyes to the fact that this extended weekend stinks in terms of TV (unless you love football).

          

Fans of Bravo's highly successful reality program "Top Chef" were in for quite the treat last Thursday evening, when two contestants from previous seasons, CJ and Antonia, participated in a friendly cook-off at The Grove. The event was sponsored by the Sherry Council of America, and featured sherry tastings and gourmet bites from a few of The Grove's top restaurants.

There's an awesome free event (yes, FREE! for those who RSVP) going down at The Grove at Farmers Market this Thursday, Sept 25th at 7pm. Top Chef contestants Chris "CJ" Jacobsen and Antonia Lofaso (who is also executive chef at WeHo hot spot Foxtail) are scheduled to appear, thanks to Los Angeles Magazine and the Sherry Council of America. CJ and Antonia will be facing off against each other in a "friendly" cooking competition, and there are also free tastings and demos from Grove restaurants like The Farm of Beverly Hills, Morels French Bistro & Steakhouse, Maggiano's Little Italy, and The Whisper Lounge.

If you thought Microsoft's foray into television had stopped with their relative failure in MSNBC, you were wrong - Microsoft acquired (for an undisclosed sum) interactive TV network Navic. Navic provides services to Comcast, Cox, Time Warner, and Charter Communications among others - so I guess what we're saying is, get ready for a blue screen of death when you try to watch TV.

The SAG and producers meet again today for the 18th time, yeah, the 18th.

Clear Channel is going private according to the NYTimes - what does it mean? Well who knows, but as a private company Clear Channel will not have to be as transparent about their investments and strategy and that could mean trouble for media markets that they target resulting in (even) less choice for consumers.

New York City may be all the way across the country, but if Rupert Murdoch gets his way there you can bet he will cast his gaze upon all other major metropolitan areas: the New York Times reports that Murdoch wants to obtain a permanent FCC waiver to acquire two TV NYC stations in addition to his three newspapers and radio assets. Will this be a last hurrah while the friendly Bush Administration still controls the FCC or will a waiver set a new standard for consolidation (and thus, more limited choice)? While Murdoch's News Corp. is based in NYC, it doesn't mean that he doesn't exert considerable influence in the West. Can you imagine LA as an "all FOX all the time" market?

MTV's "The Real World" returns for its 20th season which is scary because I remember the premiere of this show back in 1992. My roommates and I, and our significant others (or not) would get together and watch the show which seemed scarily innovative at the time - _anything_ could happen! From being an innovator in reality programming to just another in a field of crowded participants, another season of "The Real World" seems like beating a dead horse. Now that "Big Brother" owns this genre it makes one wonder if/when MTV will ever get back to some actual music programming. Maybe Los Angelinos will be compelled to watch some of this because it's based in Hollywood for this round.

Comedy Central has started to establish some control over Wednesday nights. What's funny is that I started to go back to them on Wednesdays because of Lewis Black's excellent show "Root Of All Evil" (anyone catch him on Conan last week? He was great) and now I'm finding myself re-engaging with "South Park" but I'm sure that program directors at Comedy Central were planning for the flow to happen the other way. Whatever, it's working on me. "Lewis Black's Root Of All Evil" is the TV Junkie Pick tonight and not coincidentally because the incredible Patton Oswalt is on the show as one of the comedian-debaters seeking to prove whether Paris Hilton (or the very idea of her) is more evil than Dick Cheney.

Spike has a new, totally original show that is essentially 'Cops' for the Drug Enforcement Agency and it has the totally original name 'DEA'. “Television viewers will get the same unprecedented access to the inner workings of the DEA as our camera crews – the raids, the risk and the danger,” said Al Roker, executive producer (Al Roker??!! He's so effing hardcore). “When you watch ‘DEA,’ you will feel like you have gone undercover.”

Is Fox TV above the law? The Washington Post reports that Fox is challenging a $91,000 fine levied against them by the FCC for a broadcast of "Married by America" back in 2003 that featured reality show cast members licking whipped cream off of strippers' "digitally obscured" body parts. Since the FCC is controlled by an administration that is full of Fox fans will the network get away with it? It should be noted that just a few weeks before the naughty "Married by America" episode, the FCC fined ABC $1.2 million for an episode of "NYPD Blue" that featured a shot of a woman's bare bottom. Fox is refusing to pay a fine that's 7.5% of the amount that ABC ended up paying which already raises questions.

The 10:00pm slot is hot again tonight but I'm going to have to go with Lewis Black again, that's a great show, maybe Comedy Central has finally figured out what to do with him. In other items, the Nielsen Company, whom I've occasionally reported on/castigated in this column, is inviting LAist to submit some TV Trivia questions for an "Ultimate Pop Culture Trivia Challenge" contest and I'd to invite YOU, our readers, to submit some questions for this. Please send your questions to me at tomdog@gmail.com (we don't want any sneaks to get these in advance through the comments on the website). Your participation would be much appreciated!