Monday, March 19, 7:00 p.m.
Members $85, guests $110

A talented, ambitious group of chefs due to our west think it's high time that New Jersey emerged from behind the culinary shadow of the Big Apple. These chefs have encouraged and challenged each another to produce better and better food, and by doing so have elevated the level of cuisine across the state.

Turn to page 26, and you'll see that Rod's 1890s Restaurant at The Madison Hotel in Morristown is scheduled to host a related event on March 1. In case you can't make it, some of the core members of the New Jersey team, led by Chefs' Invitational host Ehab Habashi, have offered to take their show on the road. Habashi, who grew up in Sicily, has brought international experience to his kitchens at New Jersey's beloved Madison Hotel. He studied at Oxford and the CIA, then worked in some of France's top kitchens before taking over the stoves at this antiques-filled hotel.

Like Habashi, Richard Biondo has spent time in illustrious French kitchens, and though he now heads the Italian Ristorante DA Benito in Union, his time in France informs his food. In the States, Biondo trained at the CIA and worked for some of New York's top French chefs, including Alain Sailhac and Jean-Jacques Rachou.

Walter Leffler is no stranger to stars. He has earned a handful of his own for his refined cooking at the elegant Dining Room and The Terrace in The Hilton at Short Hills. In a glowing review for The New York Times, Fran Schumer recounted a dégustation at The Dining Room that left her "dizzyingly happy," while Rene Mack, in a four-star review for The Record, pronounced his meal there "a truly fine dining experience."

Urs Moser came by cooking naturally. His family owned a small country restaurant in Switzerland, so it was no surprise when he enrolled at the Culinary Institute of Lucerne. After graduation, he opted out of the land of chocolate and cuckoo clocks, heading to a place that has been called the Switzerland of America-Vermont. He eventually moved south to work with Dennis Foy at the Town Square Inn in Chatham, New Jersey. Today, he is once again thrilling the restaurantgoing public at his solo venture, Brix 560.

Flamboyant New American cuisine and cooking with beer are the twin passions of Tim Schafer, whose expertise in the latter has earned him the sobriquet "The Brew Chef." Schumer gave Tim Schafer's Cuisine in Morristown a "very good" rating in The New York Times. Zagat called Schafer's cooking style "fun with fusion."

James Laird and Scott Cutaneo will round out this Invitational event with modern French flair. Restaurant Serenäde, where Laird and his wife, Nancy, make their professional home, is known for "the kind of light, modern French cooking perfected by restaurants like Jean Georges in Manhattan," according to the Times' Schumer; she gave the restaurant her highest rating.

Cutaneo brings a wealth of French experience to his Bernardsville charmer, Le Petit Chateau. Cutaneo worked in two of France's top kitchens, L'Espadon at the Ritz and Les Prés d'Eugénie. Stateside, he trained with Daniel Boulud in New York before taking over Le Petit Chateau in 1996. Le Petit Chateau has received four-star reviews from just about every major reviewer in the state. As Arthur Schwartz summed up on WOR, it is "the best French in New Jersey."

These days, that's saying a lot.