Baltimore chefs headed for James Beard House

Baltimore-area chefs, including a team from the Bagby Restaurant Group, will be headed to New York City in January, where they'll be cooking at the James Beard House, a storied culinary venue named for the celebrated author, educator and champion of American cuisine.

Chris Becker, the executive chef and chief operations officer of the Bagby Restaurant Group, will lead a crew from Bagby restaurants at a Chesapeake Bounty dinner on Jan. 15. And Ben Simpkins, the executive chef for the White Marsh-based Richardson Farms, will present a Winter Farm Harvest dinner at the Beard house on Jan. 23.

The Chesapeake Bounty dinner marks the James Beard House debut for the chefs from the Bagby group, which includes Ten Ten American Bistro, Fleet Street Kitchen and Cunningham's, a new restaurant in Towson.

In addition to Becker, the Bagby team going to the James Beard dinner includes Chris Allen and Angie Lee, the executive chef and pastry chef, respectively, at Cunningham's, and Chris Amendola and Bettina Perry, the executive chef and pastry chef, respectively, at Fleet Street Kitchen. Also on the team are John Aversa, the group's lead baker, and Tim Riley, the group's beverage director.

The Winter Farm Harvest dinner on Jan. 23 will be a solo act for Simpkins, the supervising chef for the Farm Market, a retail operation located at Richardson Farms that sells prepared hot foods and fresh baked products.

The proposed menus for the Cheaspeake Bounty and the Winter Farm Harvest dinners are on the James Beard Foundation website, along with ticket information. The cost of each dinner is $170 for the general public.

The Jan. 15 dinner will be the second within the past year to feature Baltimore-based chefs at the James Beard House. Last March, a team comprised of Cyrus Keefer and Sajin Renae, the current and former chefs, respectively, at Fork & Wrench, and Chad Gauss of The Food Market, presented their own take on Chesapeake cuisine at the venue.

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