Is Food and Wine's Best New Chef in Cincinnati?

The word is out around the nation – the people are voting with their palates - and The Palace Restaurant Cincinnatian is asking for your help to make the Queen city victorious! Cincinnati, historically recognized and appreciated for its contributions to the world of fine dining and haute cuisine, is again being honored for its rising culinary prominence. For such a relatively small city it truly is an accomplishment to have one of its very own – Chef Jose Salazar - ascending to the top and contending for Food and Wine Magazine’s 2011 title of “best new Chef” in America.
Steadily applying his craft at downtown’s Palace Restaurant for close to 3 years, Chef Salazar, many believe, richly deserves the award not only for his unique and adventurous approach to dining but also because he’s keen on sharing his sense of excitement about food and cooking with the city and the people of Cincinnati. Originally honing his talents in New York under such culinary luminaries as Thomas Keller at such gourmand landmarks as Bouchon Bakery, Chef Salazar is certainly no stranger when it comes to understanding how fickle and market-driven the industry can be in bestowing honor upon a chef who works outside of New York’s culinary mainstream.
But why should New York have all the fun? And why should Cincinnati, when we have one of the best chef’s anywhere, have to take a backseat to those plying their craft in such Great Lakes cities as Cleveland and Detroit? That is why the Food and Wine contest is special. Calling itself an “eatocracy,” it is perhaps the only large-scale contest of its kind that removes the power of the vote from the mainstream critic and places it exclusively with those who first experience their respective Chef on their own home turf, in the local restaurants which first brought them to critical attention, prior to introducing them to the wider culinary audience abroad. 

Some may ask why the “Great Lakes” is the region that has been selected for Cincinnati. In fairness, we have been paired with a region whose cities are closer to our size, so the “Great Lakes” is fine with Chef Salazar as long as it’s fine with the people of Cincinnati. Without question, similar to Chef Salazar’s cuisine, Cincinnati could have fit seamlessly into many categories. As a borderline city hugging the Ohio River, Southern recognition could be forthcoming; just as our obvious Midwestern locale appears equally logical. Nevertheless, a great Chef should be duly recognized no matter where he plies his craft; so if you’re interested in recognizing achievement, establishing honor, and rescuing the title of “Best New Chef” from the clutches of those lake dwelling metropolis’s back to where it rightly belongs here in the River City, then we hope you take the time to cast your vote for Cincinnati and Chef Jose Salazar at Food and Wine magazine for the Great Lakes Region of the United States.  Vote for Chef Salazar Here
In the meantime, why not stop down sometime this year – pick a third Thursday of the month – and sample some of the world’s finest cuisines in the comfort of your own city. Been to Ireland lately? How about China, Mexico, or the Polynesian Islands? Well, it may be too far afield to travel there; but you can certainly dine there – and only at The Palace Restaurant as Chef Jose Salazar continues his quest to put his own personal stamp on every part of the globe, designing a menu for all of the world’s great cuisines so that, in turn, he may offer them up to the people of Cincinnati. Now, seriously, what other Great Lakes Chef is doing that?