Tuesday, August 24, 7:00 pm
Members $100, guests $125

Food critics are, as a rule, not easily impressed, and many admit to taking “just a taste” of a chef’s dishes, to preserve their palates and their waistlines. The Phoenix New Times’ Carey Sweet found himself breaking those rules at a recent visit to Deseo. “Even though I was in Deseo’s fancy dining room overlooking a lush golf course,” he explained in a glowing review, “and even though my mother taught me better manners, I scraped up every last bit of everything edible on my plate.” Such lack of restraint is hardly surprising when you consider the chefs in charge—Anton Brunbauer, executive chef of the Westin Kierland Resort & Spa, and Douglas Rodriguez, the creative inspiration behind Deseo, and the specialty chef for the resort who is widely known as the king of “Nuevo Latino” cuisine—who will be coming to the Beard House this month with Mark Dow, Roberto Madrid, and Bryan Williams.

Anton Brunbauer has overseen culinary operations at the resort, which includes seven distinctive restaurants, since its opening in 2002. He was executive chef for 16 years at Scottsdale’s Hyatt at Gainey Ranch. Under Brunbauer’s direction, the Golden Swan, one of the property’s three restaurants, earned a four-star rating from the Mobil Travel Guide, was named one of the top area restaurants by Gourmet, and was included in a list of the top five restaurants in the Southwest by Condé Nast Traveler. Mark Dow, a native of Calgary, Alberta, is a graduate of the Scottsdale Culinary Institute, and has demonstrated a true commitment to the area’s culinary profile. He was the opening executive chef of The Barrio Grill, in Tucson, and learned a new set of skills at a local Pacific Rim–style restaurant before joining the team at Janos. Dow was on Janos’s team when Wilder was named our Best Chef: Southwest in 2000. Douglas Rodriguez has firmly established his icon status through nearly 15 years of lively and creative cooking in Miami, New York, Philadelphia, and now Scottsdale, four cookbooks, numerous awards (including the Foundation’s Rising Star Chef Award in 1996), and a pioneering culinary spirit that has given rise to a distinctive and joyful facet of the American culinary experience. As New York Daily News critic Lisa Amand wrote in her review of OLA, the latest Rodriguez eatery in New York, “Rodriguez…can entice you to eat foods you don’t even like.”

Joining them in Beard’s kitchen will be two additional chefs from the resort’s kitchens. Mexico native Roberto Madrid gives a Southwestern spin to the Westin Kierland’s menus, the result of his experience at The White Truffle, The Terrace, and the Golden Swan, all in Scottsdale. California Culinary Academy graduate Bryan Williams cooked at Mark’s Las Olas in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, before joining the Westin Kierland team to head the kitchen of the Brittlebush Bar & Grill, where the menu reflects his contemporary, global approach to cooking.