Bon Appétit released its highly anticipated America's Best New Restaurants 2014 nominations on Wednesday, August 13. Of the 50 best in the country, three are located in Austin and seven in the state of Texas.
The three local gems BA deemed the best of the best include Qui, Odd Duck and Thai-Koon@Wonderland. Both Qui and Thai-Koon@Wonderland are, of course, part of Paul Qui's ever-expanding delicious Austin empire.
While Qui is the Top Chef's flagship brick-and-mortar, Thai-Koon is his newest food trailer with frequent collaborator Motoyasu Utsunomiya. Thai-Koon specializes in Thai street food like Thai-Kun Fried Chicken and Thai-Kun Fish Cakes.
Odd Duck is the trailer-turned-brick-and-mortar from chef Bryce Gilmore. Gilmore, a celebrated chef in his own right, is also the mastermind behind Barley Swine.
In order to determine the best new restaurants, Bon Appétit restaurant and drinks editor Andrew Knowlton made multiple trips to these places throughout the year. We have no idea how Knowlton got his job, but we dream of the day a magazine will repeatedly send us to the 50 best restaurants over the course of a year.
Other Texas restaurants nominated for best in the U.S. include CBD Provisions in Dallas, Coltivare in Houston, and Cured and Hot Joy in San Antonio.
On August 19, Bon Appétit will announce the winners in its release of The Hot 10: America’s Best New Restaurants 2014. We're not gamblers, but if we were, we'd would put our money on Paul Qui showing up at least once.
Tim Laielli is known for his visually polished yet thematically chaotic cooking videos.
Two social media chefs from the Austin area are testing their skills on a national level on Season 5 of Next Level Chef. Tim Laielli, Christian Alquiza, and other contestants will compete in cooking challenges, and if they make it past the qualifiers, receive mentorship from celebrity chefs Gordon Ramsay, Nyesha Arrington, and Richard Blais.
This Fox show has a unique conceit. Chef teams work together in three kitchen stacked on top of each other, like a strange multi-story culinary incubator where the top floor's kitchen is pristine, with state-of-the-art equipment, the bottom floor's kitchen is decrepit, and the middle floor is an average commercial kitchen. Other twists bring added challenges.
The season premieres tonight, January 29, but Laielli and Alquiza probably won't appear until the second episode: the first follows auditions between professional chefs, including Houston chef Trinidad “Machete” Gonzolez, and the second (airing February 5) is reserved for social media chef auditions. The final group to audition will be home chefs.
Outside of his cooking videos, Laielli has a career as a wedding and engagement photographer. His camera skills and pro gear certainly give him a leg up in social media, though. His videos, served up via the Instagram account @barefoodtim, are feasts for the eyes.
Highly saturated, quick shots of food being cooked and plated catch viewers' attention while Laielli delivers a deadpan narration, usually focusing on a few highlights from the recipe, his family, and a sprinkling of political quips ("[these brownies] are so easy your 95-year-old senator could do it").
Laielli, who is based in Dripping Springs, has 1.4 million followers on Instagram and 910,000 subscribers on YouTube. He doesn't have an obvious signature style that viewers can expect him to lean on in the competition. If anything, his strength may be his willingness to try new recipes, often using his daughters' requests and cuisines around the world as a springboard (whether complying or completely ignoring them) into dishes like Thai curry, homemade McGriddles, and a lot of steaks.
Over in Austin proper, Alquiza posts videos under the punny account name @illsqueezeya. He's also worked for the channel First We Feast, home to the popular interview series Hot Ones, where host Sean Evans sits down with celebrities over a "gauntlet" of increasingly hot wings. Alquiza's show is Hot Kitchen, a snappy instructional show focusing on indulgent, dramatic foods like super-hot chicken and a 10,000-calorie cheat meal.
Alquiza's personal videos follow more of the standard food show format, with the chef speaking to the camera and offering step-by-step instructions to follow along with. Even though his image is mostly wrapped up with First We Feast, Next Level Chef considers him a social media chef.
The two Austin chefs have even collaborated before. Things seem to have gone well on the show, since both of them posed for a picture at Beyond The Lines Tattoo in Austin, with a text overlay revealing that the chefs got inked up together.
Looks like the chefs had a good time.
