Taste of the Nation Boston

About
Restaurants
Chef Chairs
Media
Photos

Please join us for Taste of the Nation Boston 2012!

Introducing Taste of the Nation Boston Honorary Chef Chairs:


Jody Adams, Rialto and Trade	Joanne Chang, Flour Bakery and Myers + Chang	Gordon Hamersley, Hamersley’s Bistro	Andy Husbands, Tremont 647

Share Our Strength’s Taste of the Nation is the nation’s largest and finest culinary benefit supporting the effort to end childhood hunger in America. Funds raised are granted to organizations that work to end childhood hunger, both in communities where Taste of the Nation events are held and in other communities across the country.

Taste of the Nation Boston featured over 70 of Boston’s great restaurants, 30 wineries, specialty cocktails, silent auction and live entertainment at the Hynes Convention Center.

Thanks to our all-volunteer committee and generous sponsors! 100% of ticket sales supports Share Our Strength’s efforts to end childhood hunger.

Check back with us frequently! Our chefs are signing up daily to participate in Boston's culinary premiere event dedicated to ending childhood hunger.

2012 Participating Restaurants

Honorary Chef Chairs

Jody Adams.PNG Jody Adams
Chef/Owner Rialto, Cambridge, MA
Chef/Owner Trade, Boston, MA

Jody Adams is a James Beard award-winning chef with a national reputation for her imaginative use of New England ingredients in regional Italian cuisine. Rialto, her four-star restaurant in Cambridge, has been named "One of the top 20 new restaurants in the country" by Esquire magazine and "One of the world's best hotel restaurants" by Gourmet. Beginning her culinary career as a line cook at Season's restaurant, she went on the open Hamersley's Bistro as sous-chef and then served as executive chef at Michela's in Cambridge, where Food & Wine listed her as "one of America's ten best new chefs." Soon thereafter, Adams opened Rialto in Harvard Square, collecting many honors as a result, including being inducted into the 2010 National Restaurant Hospitality Hall of Fame.

Adams has been featured in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Bon Appetit, among many others. She was a recent contestant on the second season of Top Chef Masters, BRAVO TV's popular culinary competition, where she prevailed through cooking challenges like offsite wedding wars, preparing a meal for a Lisa Simpson, and feeding the cast and crew of the television show Modern Family, before finally meeting her nemesis in the form of a frozen goat leg. She has a strong commitment to hunger relief and is known for her loyal support of The Greater Boston Food Bank, Share Our Strength presented Jody with the Humanitarian of the Year award. Jody will open her newest venture in October 2011, TRADE restaurant located on the ground floor of Atlantic Wharf in Boston's historic Waterfront District.

Joanne Chang.PNG Joanne Chang
Chef/Owner, Flour Bakery and Myers & Chang

An honors graduate of Harvard College with a degree in Applied Mathematics and Economics, Joanne left a career as a management consultant to enter the world of professional cooking.

She started as garde-manger cook at Boston's renowned Biba restaurant, then worked as a pastry cook at Bentonwood Bakery in Newton, and in 1995 was hired as Pastry Chef at Rialto restaurant in Cambridge.

Joanne moved to New York City in 1997 to work in the cake department of the critically acclaimed Payard Patisserie and Bistro. Returning to Boston a year later with dreams of openeing up her own pastry shop, she brought her French and American training to Mistral where whse was the Pastry Chef until summer of 2000.

In 2000, she opened Flour, a bakery and cafe, in Boston's South End. Flour features breakfast pastries, breads, cakes, cookies, and tarts as well as sandwiches, soups and salads. In 2007 she opened a second branch of Flour in the Fort Point Channel area and in 2010 a third branch in Cambridge near MIT and Central Square.

Flour has been featured in Gourmet, Food & Wine, Bon Appetit, The New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, Lucky Magazine, Inc. Magazine, and Boston Magazine and has received numerous Best of Boston awards. Flour was also featured on Throwdown with Bobbly Flay on the Food Network in which Joanne's sticky buns won over Bobby Flay's.

Joanne's energetic commitment to excellence extends beyond the kitchen. She writes pastry articles and reviews cookbooks for Fine Cooking magazine. She teaches classes and advises pastry cooks both within the bakery and at area cooking schools. She opened a Chinese restaurant called Myers + Chang with her husband Christopher Myers in the South End neighborhood in the fall of 2007. An avid runner, she competed in every Boston Marathon from 1991-2006. She is the author of Flour Bakery+Cafe, and she is currently in the process of writing a second cookbook featuring the soups, sandwiches, dinners and party desserts from the Flour menu.

Gordon Hamersley.PNG Gordon Hamersley
Hamersley's Bistro

Gordon Hamersley started cooking as a student at Boston University in the early 1970s. He began his career at various French restaurants in the Boston area. In 1979, he escaped New England winters and moved to Los Angeles, where he trained at the famed Ma Maison restaurant under Wolfgang Puck.

In 1982, he and his wife Fiona moved to Nice, France. Cooking by day and dining in restaurants by night, they absorbed the nuances of French cuisine, and Gordon found his inspiration and discovered his culinary "voice." A year later the pair returned to Boston where Gordon began working as sous chef to Lydia Shire (Locke-Ober, Towne, Scampo) at the Bostonian Hotel.

Gordon worked at the Bostonian Hotel until 1987 when he and Fiona opened the original Hamersley's Bistro in a tiny storefront in Boston's up-and-coming South End. In 1993, they moved their restaurant into a larger space a few blocks down Tremont Street into a historic building alongside the Boston Center for the Arts. Hamersley's Bistro quickly became one of Boston's favorites. Gordon has kept his cooking unique yet simple, and his food always reflects the freshest seasonal New England ingredients.

Gordon is a respected cooking teacher and mentor to many aspiring chefs. He teaches classes in Boston as well as in many other cities around the country. Students find his ability to relate food history to moen cooking techniques both informative and fun. Gordon also served on the Board of Advisors of the New England Culinary Institute fromm1997 to 2002 and he currently is part of several environmental groups that help protect New England's vast natural resources.

Hamersley's Bistro has received enthusiastic attention from magazine's and newspapers like Gourmet, Food & Wine and The New York Times and is consistently ranked one of Boston's top restaurants by Zagat's. In 1995, Gordon was awarded the prestigious James Beard Award Best Chef Northeast. Gordon has appeared with Julia Child on her television series "Cooking with Masters Chefs" and is featured in accompanying cookbook. He has appeared on the Food Network as well as numerous other TV cooking shows.

Andy Husbands.PNG Andy Husbands
Chef/Owner, Tremont 647
Boston, MA

Chef/Owner Andy Husbands, the award winning chef of Tremont 647, has been enticing patrons with his adventurous American cuisine at the South End neighborhood restaurant and bar for well over a decade. And established cookbook author, Husbands has also been working tirelessly to eliminate childhood hunger for the past 20 years. When he is not in the kitchen or working on his second cookbook, Husbands is competing withh is internationally recognized BBQ team: iQUE BBQ by winning the Jack Daniels World Championships in 2010.

Husbands has received attention both locally and nationally for his bold flavors, commitment to using the best, fresh ingredients and seasonality, receiving praise from both press and patrons alike. Including, but not limited to: James Beard Semi Finalist "Best Chef" - Contestant of Fox Television Network's "Hell's Kitchen" - Wine Spectators "Award of Excellence" - "Best of Boston" from Boston Magazine - "One of Boston nightlife's most influential people" Stuff Magazine - One of five "Celebrated Chefs" National Pork Council.