Four Seasons to host celebrity chef dinner

If you consider yourself a foodie or a fine-dining aficionado, the Four Seasons Resort Orlando will be hosting a dining experience you won’t want to miss.

The five-diamond resort is hosting the fourth annual James Beard Foundation Celebrity Chef Tour Dinner at 6 p.m. Dec. 1. The dinner will take place at the resort located in the Four Seasons Orlando at 10100 Dream Tree Blvd., Lake Buena Vista. Tickets are $235 per person and must be purchased in advance on the James Beard Foundation website.

“This is a really special occasion,” said Dana Berry, director of public relations and communications for the Four Seasons Resort Orlando. “It’s for somebody who is really passionate about food and wants to have an unforgettable culinary experience. This is the night for the foodies to come out.”

The James Beard Foundation Celebrity Chef Tour Dinner will feature 10 courses prepared by 10 different chefs. Diners will enjoy four appetizer stations, a four-course dinner with wine pairings and a two-course dessert. 

“We have several of our chefs doing the appetizer station,” Berry said. “We have several of the guest chefs serving the main courses. … And then we have two chefs doing a dessert combination — a dessert duo.”

Berry added the interaction between the chefs and guests makes the dining event unique.

“The chefs come and mix and mingle with the guests when they start serving the courses,” Berry said. “The chefs each come out and introduce their course, and they go table to table to talk to the guests. It’s pretty interactive, and it’s really fun. The guests are seated, but the chefs come out a lot.”

The dinner will start with a one-hour reception, during which diners will be served champagne and appetizers. Appetizers will be served buffet-style from four different stations, each featuring a different dish prepared by one of the 10 featured chefs. A four-course dinner will come next, followed by a two-course dessert, Berry said.

“We’ll have an oyster bar station with a selection of different oysters (for one of the appetizers),” Berry said. “The (dinner) courses will be phased. They’ll start coming out slowly, and the chefs will come out and talk with guests about the courses and mix and mingle around the tables. They (guests) get everything. They get the full menu.”

Four Seasons Orlando Executive Chef Fabrizio Schenardi is one of the featured chefs. Schenardi will be preparing a pasta dish as one of the dinner course items for the event — raviolone cacio e pepe served with topinambur cream, artichoke chips and malabar pepper.

Schenardi said his dish is a modern version of a classic Italian dish, cacio e pepe. Traditionally, cacio e pepe is a simple combination of pasta, a pan sauce made from pasta water, pecorino romano cheese and lots of black pepper. Shenardi’s take on the dish turns the traditional version inside out.

“The dish I’m going to prepare is actually a classic — but inverted,” Schenardi said. “It’s raviolone cacio e pepe, but instead of having the cacio e pepe outside (the pasta) it is inside the raviolone. So when you cut it, everything comes out. It’s going to be one big raviolone with lots of pecorino cheese inside and on the top. (On the) inside is a mix of ricotta, pecorino and a little bit of mascarpone to keep it soft. Then we put artichoke chips around the plate and … artichoke puree on the bottom.”