For pure getting-sucked-in time killer voyeurism, few social media platforms can match Twitter. It's even better when a flame war breaks out. Such was the case last night when Graham Elliot Bowles read Chicago magazine's recap of his Lollpalooza food court preview party. Writer Cassie Walker took the unusual step of ranking the bite-sized samples of the food served. "Unusual" in that, while Walker was transparent that she was attending a media preview and, according to Chicago Mag, introduced herself as a journalist to Bowles, the food rarely gets a grade in the interest of maintaining ethics. (For an example of how this was done properly, read Janet Rausa Fuller's recap of the Lolla media preview on the Sun-Times food blog, which does everything Walker did except review the food). more ›

Graham Elliot Bowles, who's serving as the Culinary Director for Lollapalooza, has set his list of vendors for the event and it's a lineup probably more formidable than the music. Justin Large will be bringing his tacos and homemade tortillas from Big Star to the fest. So will upstart tubesteak purveyor Franks 'N Dawgs, Cary Taylor's comfortable Southern cooking fromt he Southern, Rodeglio Aglibot's pan-Asian at Sunda and the monster burgers of Kuma's Corner. more ›

The rallying cry of "We want food trucks!" has gone up almost simultaneously around the city, starting when ChicagoFoodTrucks.com went live on March 28th. Since then, plenty of ink has been spilled about why we can't eat Korean tacos like LA does, what it'd take to get some legal falafel carts around town, and how great it would be to have guys like Bill Kim and Graham Elliot Bowles show up outside the Double Door or the Whistler at midnight. more ›

Last year Graham Elliot Bowles spent Lollapalooza cooking for Jane's Addiction and working the food court. This year Lollapalooza's organizers have tapped the chef and hard-core music geek to bring the best this city has to offer to Grant Park. more ›

You're such a tease, GEB. more ›

Graham Elliot Bowles took time away from playing dressup, cooking for rock bands and gearing up for Top Chef Masters 2 to talk to Black Book about his path from cooking school to foie gras lollipops. "I just wanted to cook," Bowles said. more ›

Thursday night some of Chicago's best chefs will be preparing dishes for Toque, an event to benefit Children's Oncology Services, Inc. The benefit takes place at Harold Washington Library Center (400 S. State Street) and will includes cocktails and a degustation menu as well as both a silent and live auction. Tickets are $250 each. Bill Kurtis, founder of Tallgass Beef Company, will be the Master of Ceremonies and the Chef Coordinator for the event is Michael Kornick of MK, one of our favorites. Featured Chefs include: more ›

This in from Tribune Mayor McCheese, um, "Cheeseburger Bureau Chief" Kevin Pang: Graham Elliot Bowles, who's been known to play his own music in between spins of Huey Lewis and the Clash in his eponymous River North restaurant, will be cooking for Jane's Addiction when Lollapalooza hits town in a few short weeks. Bowles will be serving Perry and company what he described as a "heartland picnic." more ›

Maybe this week a chef will stick a toilet brush in some pasta and everyone will declare it a brilliant new method of stirring. Let's see who is battling it out today: Graham Elliot Bowles from Chicago (we accidentally typed bowels at first - whoops).We dig his Chicago pin on his hat. Suzanne Tracht from Los Angeles enters the kitchen next. Oooo, it's Wylie Dufresne! How is anyone going to beat him when he has +20 hit points and +15 magic potion? Annie Lennox walks in! Oh, no, wait, that's Elizabeth Falkner. She sounds impressive with her James Beard award. more ›

One of the last things we needed to see was Graham Elliot Bowles in a thong. more ›

After going into Stephanie Izard overload recapping "Top Chef: Chicago" we decided to sit out recapping "TC5". Well, and we had a very strong feeling Radhika Desai wasn't going to win. more ›

It was around 5 p.m. Sunday when I and the other judges for Cochon 555 gathered around a series of tables set up in the middle of a cavernous ballroom in the Drake Hotel, like a scene straight out of "Top Chef." Any questions about how we were to judge the competition were answered by Cochon founder Brady Lowe. We were asked to judge the chefs on a scale of 1-5 based on three factors: presentation, flavor, and utilization of the whole pig. That last factor was important, since this was a snout-to-tail competition. more ›

A couple weeks back a post ran about Cochon 555, the snout-to-tail pork competition Sunday at the Drake Hotel featuring Graham Elliot Bowles, Stephen Dunne, Chris Pandel, Patrick Sheerin and Sam Burman. Each of them is tasked with breaking down and preparing a heritage breed pig for eating. Since then your humble food and drink editor was invited to be one of the judges for the event. I have no earthly clue what I bring to the table that chefs Koren Grieveson, Rick Gresch, Seth Siegel-Gardner and Doug Sohn don't, but it should be a fascinating time. more ›

The big question with Graham Elliot's "Sexy Burger," besides recalculating your life expectancy with every bite, is what beer is bold enough to pair with it. Say hello to Mendocino Red Tail Ale, people. This amber ale, brewed with Caramel and Pale malts along with Cascade and Cluster hops, was up for the challenge. more ›

Yesterday's episode of "The Cheeseburger Show" ended with Kevin Pang challenging Graham Elliot Bowles to place his indelible stamp on the cheeseburger. The result was something that could easily have been the product of a three-year-old's imagination, if that toddler had the kitchen skills of Bowles. more ›

Taste TV, the food and fashion Web network that brought their Chocolate Salon to Symphony Center last autumn, has been organizing a series of judged snout-to-tail competitions across the country in recent months. "Cochon 555" pits five chefs against each other, each of them given their own heritage pig to break down and cook, paired with wines from five boutique wineries. Think "The Whole Hog Project," complete with the same mission of raising awareness about endangered breeds of swine, without the focus on one breed. more ›

With the ongoing success of "Top Chef," it was only a matter of time before Bravo decided that they would expand the franchise by opening up the competition to already established chefs. The idea for this has been in the works for close to a year. more ›

We attended the soft opening for Graham Elliot, the new River North "bistronomic restaurant" from former Avenues chef Graham Elliot Bowles at 217 W. Huron, last month and were sufficiently impressed by what we sampled to put it on our list of restaurants to return, keeping in mind that soft openings are generally where a new restaurant does its best to maintain initial appearances more ›

After voting in the Chicago Way, the 2008 James Beard Award nominees were announced today (via). The list is filled with some familiar names (Grant Achatz for outstanding chef, Rich Melman for Outstanding restaurateur) and encompasses a good cross section of the city's dining scene. For the coveted "Best Chef: Great Lakes" category, the inclusion of North Pond's Bruce Sherman, Naha's Carrie Nahabedian and Graham Elliot Bowles gives Chicago a 3-in-5 chance that the winning chef will be located here. The one section where Chicago's restaurants were notably absent was in the "best new restaurant" category, where Sepia was snubbed. more ›

New York magazine got their hands on a copy of this year's James Beard award ballots (check it out for yourself here) and as usual, our city's restaurants are well-represented. more ›

Some chef news for you: Monday both Chicago Mag's Dish and TOC broke the news that Avenues' Graham Elliot Bowles will be leaving the AAA five-diamond award winning restaurant in April to open a new restaurant in the former Harvest on Huron space (217 W. Huron). more ›

If you happened to be dining at any one of a number of Chicago’s top restaurants last Monday evening and peeked your head into the kitchen, odds are you wouldn’t have found the executive chefs there. But that doesn’t mean they weren’t working. Instead, over 30 of the city’s best chefs and 20 United States Bartenders’ Guild members were donating their time and skills to Share Our Strength’s “Taste of the Nation Chicago,” just... more ›

June has been designated as Hunger Awareness Month, and just as the month is winding down, we have one big ticket event to mention in support. more ›

The James L. Beard Award nominees were announced yesterday and as in years past, Chicago represented. And the Chicago-based nominees are: Outstanding Restaurateur: Richard Melman, Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises Outstanding Chef: Jean Joho, Everest and Paul Kahan, Blackbird Outstanding Restaurant: Frontera Grill and Spiaggia Rising Star Chef of the Year: Graham Elliot Bowles, Avenues Outstanding Pastry Chef: Mindy Segal, HotChocolate Outstanding Service: Tru Outstanding Wine Service: Bin 36, Wine Director Brian Duncan Best Chef, Great... more ›

Chicago's hometown chefs must be trembling in their clogs; the Sun-Times is reporting that Alain Ducasse, the only chef to have three restaurants with three Michelin stars, may be considering opening a restaurant in Chicago. more ›

Surfing between the Police reunion on the Grammys last night and an all-new evening of animation on Fox (and if Family Guy's "My Drunken Irish Dad" song isn't being sung en masse this St. Patrick's Day, we'll be sorely disappointed), Avenues' chef Graham Elliot Bowles took on Bobby Flay on "Iron Chef America." Knowing that the Tribune had Bowles' appearance featured in yesterday's Sunday magazine, we didn't buy the Sunday paper yesterday and stayed away... more ›

We don't know anyone who watches "Today" at 9:45 a.m., so we missed Graham Elliot Bowles' Valentine's Floral Menu segment. However, the robust chef de cuisine of Avenues will be a very visible man this week. First, there's his showdown on "Iron Chef America" with Bobby Flay this Sunday; in a perfect world the secret ingredient would be Flay, served with some fava beans and a nice chianti. Foodie groupies will can watch the episode... more ›

Twenty of the top chefs in Chicago are joining forces with Food & Wine Magazine for the 2006 Entertaining Showcase at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Wednesday, November 15. The list of participating chefs reads like a who's who of Chicago fine dining: Food & Wine Best New Chefs Michael Carlson of Schwa and Graham Elliot Bowles of Avenues, Grant Achatz from Alinea, Shawn McClain from Spring, Green Zebra and Custom House, and Andrew Zimmerman... more ›