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Gourmet art: Tartare Cones with aioli
dipping sauce on a palette prepared by the culinary team
at the Ritz-Carlton, South Beach. Photo courtesy of
Ritz-Carlton |
Fifteen of Miami’s top chefs will come together this week
for Art Appétit — the latest addition to Art Basel, combining
chefs, food and art.
The chefs, from
some of South Florida’s most renowned restaurants, will put
their culinary skills aside to test their artistic abilities.
“These chefs
are not limiting themselves to the constraints of a plate,” said
Gabriele Marewski, the brainchild behind Art Appétit.
Marewski’s idea
for the event stemmed from her business, Paradise Farms — a
five-acre farm in Homestead where she grows all sorts of greens,
edible flowers and other produce. She has been delivering her
products to Miami restaurants for eight years and has grown
close with the chefs, who all volunteered to participate in the
very first Art Appétit.
“I see art when
I deliver to the chefs, so now I asked each of them to express
themselves [artistically],” Marewski said.
Expression is
exactly what the chefs plan to provide at their individual,
themed stations. Chef Larry LaVally of Mark’s South Beach, for
example, will build a gingerbread hotel. Giancarla Bodoni of
Escopazzo Restaurant will display a sea scene — an aquarium
created with seafood and stainless steel metal plates adorned
with tomato, basil and mozzarella hors d’oeuvres. Bernardo
Espinel of Bistro One LR will grind up beets, corn and other
colorful food to use as paint on a canvas backdrop. His other
canvas consists of flat, white, square plates with hors
d’oeuvres to match his main painting.
DeLido Beach
Club Chef Jeff McInnis, a close friend of Marewski who is
spearheading the event, will concoct such special drinks as
watermelon mojitos and rose water cocktails. McInnis has
incorporated organic ingredients into his cooking since he
joined Ritz-Carlton’s culinary team in 2004 in response to
customers’ desires to look and be healthy. “Organic food may
cost a little more money, but it changes people’s lives,” he
said.
For Marewski,
though, the event marks the culmination of her five-year dream
to unite chefs and art.
“This event is
for fun,” she said. “It’s to give my customers [the chefs]
recognition. “Chefs are artists and the art world is here [in
Miami].”
Art Appétit
will be held from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Dec. 6 at the Ritz-Carlton,
South Beach, One Lincoln Road, Miami Beach, 786-276-4000; from 7
to 9 p.m. Dec. 8 at Casa Décor, 1444 Biscayne Blvd., Miami,
888-882-2349; and from 7 to 9 p.m. Dec. 9 at Karu & Y, 71 N.W.
14th St., Miami, 305-403-7850.
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