Monday, December 9, 7:00 P.M.
Members $95, guests $120

We've all toyed with the same question: If you were building a multimillion-dollar beachfront resort with a 20,000-foot seaside spa, three sparkling swimming pools, a museum-quality art collection, and an important restaurant, whom would you hire to cook? The people behind the luxurious Montage Resort & Spa, set to open in Laguna Beach, California, next February, asked themselves this very question, and to solve it they had an brilliant idea. They went looking for a chef who had already established himself in a similar role in a celebrated resort, and who had won numerous awards in the process. They found James Boyce, a James Beard Award nominee and a familiar face at the Beard House. And he's coming back to the House to give everyone a preview of what's in store when Studio, the art-themed resort's fine-dining restaurant, opens next year.

Boyce had been cooking for three and a half years at the double Mobil Five—Star resort, The Phoenician, in Scottsdale, Arizona—one of the rare properties where both the restaurant (Mary Elaine's) and the hotel have earned the award—when the people from Montage came knocking. The response to his food at Mary Elaine's had been impressive. "The kitchen got a shot in the arm from chef James Boyce," Harvey Steiman wrote in Wine Spectator. Phoenix Magazine's Nikki Buchanan, who no doubt had the opportunity to enjoy the food of several chefs working in Mary Elaine's kitchen, noted she'd "always considered Mary Elaine's one of the city's best restaurants, but now that James Boyce is in the kitchen, I think the food is as good as—maybe better than—it's ever been."

A degree from the CIA launched Boyce's culinary career, which has taken him from Daniel Boulud's kitchen at Le Cirque in New York, to the Palace Court at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, to the Loews Coronado Bay Resort in San Diego. At Studio, he's being referred to as the "artist in residence." For one night this month, he'll be the artist in our residence, cooking with regional products from around his new home. Don't miss it.