Chef Kevin Lee brings Food Network to town

Celebrity chefs due in 405 diningscape this month

As promised for awhile now, chef Kevin Lee has been sitting on some big news. Birdie’s by chef Kevin Lee will host celebrity chefs for two nights to close out the month of August.

The first night will feature a collaboration between local king of collabs Jeff Chanchaleune, who sports three James Beard Award nominations, and chef Nini Nguyen.

Originally from New Orleans, Nini combines Vietnamese cuisine with bayou sensibilities. She moved to New York where she worked as a pastry chef at Coquette and Eleven Madison Park. She learned savory skills with a touring pop-up called Dinner Lab. She then created Cook Space, a kitchen incubator in Brooklyn. The two-time Top Chef contestant will be in town to launch the arrival of her new cookbook, A Dac Biet Cookbook by Chef Nini Nguyen. Ticket-holders will get a copy of the book, and the keys to a multi-course meal she and Chanchaleune will devise.

The following night, Lee will welcome Food Network and Top Chef veteran Dale Talde in for a collaboration. Talde is the proud son of Filipino immigrants. He was immersed in the  flavors of his heritage growing up in Chicago. The Culinary Institute of America grad opened chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s Thai-inspired French restaurant, Vong-Chicago shortly after graduating in 1998. Next came Spring with chef Shawn McClain. After consulting on Vietnamese bistro Le Anne, Talde moved to New York and became chef de cuisine at Buddakan. In 2013, Dale was named New York’s Best Chef by Food & Wine and a Rising Star Chef by StarChefs.com. He was also named a Tastemaster by Nation’s Restaurant News in 2018.

He opened his first restaurant, TALDE, in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood in 2012. It expanded to Miami, Fla., and Jersey City, New Jersey. After two Manhattan restaurants, Dale and his life partner Agnes opened Goosefeather in Tarrytown, New York, in 2019. Esquire Magazine named it to its Best New Restaurant List the following year and helped Dale earn a Best Chef New York nomination from the James Beard Foundation. 

His first cookbook, Asian-American: Proudly Inauthentic Recipes from the Philippines to Brooklyn, was published in 2015. He is also the host of Tastemade’s All Up In My Grill. Besides Top Chef, Talde has appeared on Chopped, Iron Chef America, Beat Bobby Flay and Knife Fight.

Lee met Talde and Nguyen in his recent exploits making Food Network appearances, including Guy’s Grocery Games, Alex vs. America, Beat Bobby Flay, Bobby Flay’s Triple Threat, and Guy Fieri’s $150,000 Tournament of Champions. Lee said he hopes to bring more events like this one to the market next year.

Find tickets to either event here.