BEST CHEFS PARTY

Food & Wine Party... Ok there is not one word above that I don't absolutely LOVE (Food. Wine. Party.). So, you can imagine how much fun I had at this year's
Best Chefs of '09 Bash, given by Food n Wine Magazine in NYC.

I Amtrak'ed it down for the night, and had a blast reconnecting with old friends, and picking the brains of some new chefs that I've always wanted to meet. Late night I met up with Andrew (my Top Chef partner in crime) at The Spotted Pig. He was his usual boring self... a total snooze. Haha, AS IF. But first - the party and my line skipping photos..i was caught!



My favorite person there? Probably a tie between Gail Simmons (she's SO nice and SO beautiful) and Josh Ozersky (he writes The Feedbag Blog, a total genius and absolute trip). I'd be lying if I didn't get all excited over chillin' with Katy Lee Joel, doing our restaurant talk thing! Tom Colicchio, was on crutches but still the coolest dude in the house. Also Nikki Cascone was there - she's an incredible person and a close friend. I hope everyone visits her at 24PRINCE in NYC (promise?). Oh, least I forget the biggest trip of all - FABIO was making the rounds, complete with his bombshell wife and big, bright smile. He's a real ham, that one, but I honestly can't say I don't like the guy.

After catching up with everyone, I walked around with some friends, sampled some stellar food and some not so stellar food. Stephanie Izzard's scallops were the star of the night. Yeah, yeah, insert the scallop jokes here.

Scott Conant served some delish TK from Scarpetta. I'm really impressed by him in general, nice guy, super-talented chef (but you don't need ME to tell you that, just
read The New York Times). I saw Harold from Top Chef, who's a perfectly nice guy, but sooooo shy - he needs to live it up more! Chefs are the new Rockstars, yo!!

We danced for a while, getting down n dirty with god-knows-who, at one point I think Rocco DiSpirito was trying to grind with me. That's probably when I realized it was time to take off. I hung out with some peeps at Nobu and then my bud Nick and I proceeded to party on with Andrew at The Spotted Pig where I will shamelessly admit, there was some sort of cat fight over me and Andrew. Meow! And we'll end there!

Love 'n cat fights,
Spike