AMERICA’S TOP-RATED

RESTAURANTS & CHEFS 2008

These restaurants were selected by John Mariani as America’s Top 20 Restaurants 2008
(not in order of preference). The content of this overview was written by the editorial
staff of the Chefs In America Awards Foundation.

 

SAMPLE MENU   Appetizers   Maine Lobster “Fritta” nectarine, tarragon aioli and house-made mortadella   Red Wagon Early Cascade Tomato Salad sweet corn vinaigrette and “mozzarella di bufala”   Grilled and Sliced Moroccan Octopus Cure Farm cucumber, cherry tomato and sheep’s milk feta   Menu Highlights   Munson Farm Cauliflower and Montasio Soup rabbit “conserva” and cipollini onion “agrodolce”   House-made Russet Potato Gnocchi spinach, Munson Farm sweet corn and “ricotta affumicata”   Butter Roasted Florida Grouper Rancho Gordo shell beans and vegetable succotash   Shaved Long Family Farm Pork Leg fingerling potatoes, Palisade peach and bacon-rosemary vinaigrette

FRASCA

FOOD AND WINE
Friuli-Venezia Giulia is a sub-alpine region in northeast Italy. Historically found throughout Friuli, “Frascas” were friendly and informal gathering places, a destination for farmers, friends, and families to share a meal and a bottle of wine. This was the inspiration for Bobby Stuckey Owner/Wine Director with Owner/Chef Lachlan Mackinnon to open Frasca in Colorado.

CHEF LACHLAN MACKINNON-PATTERSON
Lachlan's culinary career began at the Old Warson Country Club in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1999 he moved to Paris to obtain his Certificate d'Aptitude Professionnelle at the prestigious Ecole Gregoire-Ferrandi. He then apprenticed with Benoit Guichard at the famed Jamin, a Michelin two-star restaurant.

He continued to hone his culinary skills working under owner and Chef Guy Guilloux at La Taupiniere, a Michelin rated one-star restaurant in Pont Aven, Brittany. In 2001 Lachlan joined the staff of The French Laundry in Yountville, California, as Chef de Partie under Chef Thomas Keller.

Lachlan was nominated by the James Beard Foundation for the "Rising Star Chef" award in 2006. In 2008, Lachlan was again nominated and named by the James Beard Foundation the “Best Chef in Southwest Region of the United States”.