The Bay Area's continuing sanctification of chefs (what in heaven's name do you think Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham would say regarding this trend of placing cooks on such high pedestals?) goes further with the Commonwealth Club's upcoming "Meet 'n Eat with SF's Hottest Young Chef" at Bar Agricole. more ›

Top Chef will hit its tenth season this year, and they are looking for San Francisco-based gastronomic talent for the big one-zero. Might you be the next cheftestant? While Bravo's food competition show shows slight signs of age — let's face it, it's no RuPaul's Drag Race; a show on par creatively and critically as Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, and even Bad Girls Club, it is the most important thing on TV right now — they still showcase major cooking prowess and drama, something the Bay Area has in spades. more ›

Local chef/owner Josh Skenes (Saison) won the Outstanding Culinary Award by the The International Culinary Center on Tuesday. Skenes, an alumni of said International Culinary Center, was among five individuals to nab the (PR-tinged) award for excellence in, like, you know, cooking stuff. Before opening Saison, Skenes opened Stonehill Tavern at the St. Regis Resort (Dana Point in la maison, yo!). more ›

Noted chef David Kinch scored GQ's annual Chef of the Year award this year. "In a world of Molto food empires and spiky-haired TV hosts," GQ scribe Charles Bowden writes, "David Kinch is an anomaly." Why? Well for starters, he's a cook who cooks in his kitchen "in a single restaurant and a single garden, quietly inventing a new kind of cooking and dazzling anyone lucky enough to sit at his table." But did you also know that Kinch is a) Wynton Marsalis' best friend and b) a bad motherfucker? more ›

Now, this is our kind of gastronome. Gabrielle Hamilton, James Beard Award-winning chef and owner of Prune (in New York City's East Village), will speak on Thursday at the Herbst Theatre as part of the City Arts Lectures series. In addition to knowing her way around a kitchen, Hamilton also penned the exquisite Blood, Bones, and Butter. Anthony Bourdain hailed the memoir, saying, "Simply the best memoir by a chef ever." more ›

This year's annual bacchanalia of pork and wine, Cochon 555, rears its savory head on Sunday, June 5. Will you be there? Well, you should. "Officially, the event is all about promoting heritage pig breeds and blah blah blah, but clearly for most, it's a chance for indulging their unadulterated pork passions and eat a lot of bacon," explains Grub Street. more ›

During last night's chefs and restaurants portion of the James Beard Awards (i.e., the Grammy Awards of food), New York took home most of the top awards, leaving many Bay Area gastronomes empty-handed. Best New Restaurant went to ABC Kitchen, beating out San Francisco's resplendent Benu. On this side of the coast, Gabriel Rucker of Le Pigeon in Portland edged out Thomas McNaughton of Flour + Water and Aaron London of Ubuntu to win the Rising Star Chef of the Year Award. The only major Bay Area winner was Michael Tusk of Quince and Cotogna. He beat LA’s Michael Cimarusti, Christopher Kostow of Meadowood, Daniel Patterson of Coi, and Richard Reddington of Redd to nab the Best Chef: Pacific honor. List of winners below: more ›

The James Beard Foundation announced its final nominees today for their annual awards bestowment, set to take place on May 9. As expected a slew of nominees are right here in the Bay Area. A few notables: Jon Bonné (Saveur/Inside Scoop), Michael Chiarello's Bottega cookbook, Daniel Patterson (Coi, Plum), Richard Reddington (Redd), Bar Agricole, Benu, Charles Phan (Slanted Door), and, of course, Gary Danko. more ›

will appear on the next season of Top Chef Masters, Bravo's successful spin off of Top Chef. more ›

Eater held its annual sexy chef survey. And the San Francisco winner is... David Bazirgan, chef at Fifth Floor. Eater notes: " 'The Baz"'has done it again. After grappling through heat after heat of gut-wrenching Eater Hottest Chef face offs, our very own David Bazirgan of Fifth Floor has gone ahead and put the Eater Hottest Chef in America contest in the bag." And, yes, the former Chez Papa chef is indeed very attractive. Well picked, San Francisco. If he has a sparkling personality to match, we see a food show in his future. more ›

See, it's headlines like that, Paolo Lucchesi, that get our heart strings zinging! (Say what you will about Florence, he's still the kind of guy you want inside you.) Alas, the two noted Bay Area chefs haven't ended anything on the romantic front - both are openly heterosexual - but they have parted way professionally. more ›

Paolo Lucchesi of Inside Scoop broke some food industry news last night about the much-lauded A16. "Executive chef Liza Shaw — who has been in the kitchen since it opened in 2004 — will be leaving the Marina hotspot." Shaw will reportedly be "off to do some traveling." Owners Shelley Lindgren and Victoria Libin have replaced the noted food wiz with chef de cuisine David Taylor. This comes on the heels of Jennie Lorenzo departing Fifth Floor and Erica Holland-Toll exiting Ducca in September. Last year, Michael Bauer, if you recall, asked, 'where have all the women gone?' Good question, B. Good question. [Inside Scoop] more ›

Paolo Lucchesi informs us that the city will soon lose one of its celebrity gastronomes, former Top Chef contestant Jamie Lauren. According to her Twitter page (via Eater) she says, "Yes! It's true! I'm moving to LA!! Keep watching my Twitter to see where I end up...and come see me at absinthe before I leave..." She plans on heading for sunnier climates and filthier air by June. This news comes on the heels of the noted Hayes Valley restaurant planning to takeover the old Citizen Cake spot. more ›

This past weekend the Chron's food staff revealed their picks for the Rising Star Chefs of 2010, and it's an all-male slate this time around. Last year's list had two women on it, and most years there is at least one. But as Michael Bauer laments in his intro, they tried hard to "diversify the pool, [but] these guys kept rising to the top." more ›

Yes, it's the time again when Bay Area chefs, critics, and other artisan slop notables break their silence on what junk food they let pass over their acclaimed, richly-textured palates. Everything from aged (read: stale) Swedish Fish to Tombstone Pizza (mmm) to Rotel cheese dip (quadruple mmm) to Beard Papa cream puffs receive tips of the hat from the gastronomic elite. Many thanks goes out to the fine food folks who participated. more ›

Although the mystique and innovation of New York City has dimmed over the last few years -- what was once, as countless New Yorkers have described it to us, a mecca for richly-textured thought and poeples has now revealed itself as simply a large museum city brimming with tell-it-like-it-is-esque reality show contestant types -- the food culture there is as popular as ever. Even the chefs there still think of themselves as rock stars. Which is adorable. more ›

by Tiffany Maleshefski more ›

In an effort to expose the fructose- and sodium-laced underbelly of the Bay Area foodie scene, SFist asked famous gastronomic types to reveal their junk food habits of choice. more ›

by Tiffany Maleshefski more ›