Border Grill is hosting a Top Chef Masters reunion dinner this week, with hosts Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger welcoming guest chefs and fellow former TCM competitors Rick Moonen and Hugh Acheson. As he’s the only one without restaurants in Las Vegas, Acheson is the oddball of the group, but the Canadian-born, Atlanta-based chef, restaurateur and cookbook author is looking forward to his Vegas visit. We caught up with Acheson, also a regular rotating judge on the regular Top Chef series, as he checked in on his southern restaurants and prepared to hit the Strip for Wednesday’s special dinner event.
How excited are you to cook with your Top Chef Masters buddies again? Really excited because it’s such a great group of people. The competitors on the regular Top Chef don’t make relationships like we did. Mary Sue and I have really become close over the years and I have so much respect for [her]. Her and Susan and Rick are like brothers and sisters to me. You know, chefs can be so competitive, and here we were on this show that’s competitive by nature, but now we’re so far beyond that.
You’re in Las Vegas a couple times a year. Where do you go when you’re in town? I love me some Raku and some Lotus of Siam. I try to get off the Strip and eat some food and I really love what’s going on Downtown. What Tony [Hsieh] has done there is really amazing. But I try to breathe the real world of Las Vegas. It’s an amazing place and people need to see more of it.
You have several successful restaurants in Georgia. Have you been approached about doing something in Las Vegas? Is that something you’d consider? I have been, and I’ve always said no because we like our restaurants to be near to us. But it’s something we think about. The one thing that Las Vegas lacks is kinda the food I do, southern-inspired cuisine. Now you have Yardbird doing it and doing it really well at Venetian. The only other one historically is Emeril [Lagasse], but that’s decidedly more Louisiana cooking.
You’re getting ready to open a coffee bar, Spiller Park, in Atlanta. What led you to that development? I’m really interested in coffee [culture] overall and always just a big fan of coffee. We’ve been able to institute a really good program in all our restaurants, and for this we’re part of a really cool refurbishment of a city market, [kind] of like Chelsea Market in New York. It’s meant to be this amazing confluence of great culinary and commercial stuff and it should open in fall. These days I think I’ve matured into a chef who’s trying to be a leader and a creator of other leaders, and I’ve got this guy Dale Donchey who I’ve worked with a long time and he’s an utter coffee nerd and just really bright. He’s got the skills to create this amazing place, and that’s what we’re trying to create.
You also put out a new cookbook recently, The Broad Fork, which is vegetable-oriented. Why did you go that route? It’s not vegetarian, it’s vegetable-centric. It’s a look at vegetables and how to use them. It sort of tackles that age-old question: what the hell do I do with kohlrabi? If you want people to do more you have to show them different ways of treating vegetables. A lot of the future is about reducing protein size and increasing the amount of vegetables on the plate, but it’s also about beating this notion people have about southern food that’s really misplaced. It really always has been a celebration of vegetables.
Top Chef is coming back this fall with a season filmed along the California coast, and you’ll be judging once again. Which do you prefer, judging or competing like you did on Top Chef Masters? Being a judge is very easy. You get food and you pass judgment on it. I love it and it’s a lot of fun. Competing is a nerve-wracking experience, dealing with time management and figuring out how to bring something new and making sure you don’t make stupid mistakes or fall into the trappings of over-salting or something like that. I’m pretty happy to sit back and relax. But sometimes a challenge comes up that’s a really good one and you think, maybe I’d like to tackle that one.
Top Chef Masters Reunion Dinner August 19, 6:30 p.m., $99. Border Grill at Mandalay Bay, tickets available online.
