Monday, March 7, 7:00 pm
Members $90, guests $115

Randy Zweiban’s résumé might well qualify him in a court of law as an expert on the complex marriage of food, wine, and music. It was only after spending most of the 1980s playing drums for obscure bands in clubs like CBGB’s that Zweiban, who grew up in Queens, accepted the fact he would never be a rock-’n’-roll star and devoted himself to becoming a chef. These days, from the kitchen of Nacional 27, his pioneering Nuevo Latino restaurant and club in Chicago, Zweiban raps out big bold flavors that accentuate the vibrant sounds and rhythms of the Latin music on the dance floor.

Before helping to introduce the most prominent culinary movement of the last decade to the bosom of meat-and-potatoes Middle America, Zweiban learned his trade from the chef he considers his mentor, Norman Van Aken. After graduating from Peter Kump’s New York Cooking School (now I.C.E.), Zweiban moved to Miami and hounded Van Aken for a job, beginning a seven-year collaboration in which Zweiban rose to chef de cuisine at Norman’s, and thoroughly soaked up Van Aken’s New World cuisine.

In 1998, Richard Melman, head of Lettuce Entertain You, enticed Zweiban to Chicago to renovate the Mexican-themed Hat Dance restaurant and replace it with Nacional 27. There, Zweiban has developed an innovative and constantly changing menu that draws upon the cuisine of the 27 nations south of the U.S. border; the strongest influences come from Brazil, Argentina, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Mexico. In 1999, Chicago magazine named Nacional 27 Best New Restaurant, and the accolades have continued to roll in.

That Zweiban could pull off such an audacious concept was no surprise. “Whenever I do a plate,” he told Chef magazine in 2000, “I try to make my foodstuffs indigenous to the region—a credo I learned from Norman…In Chicago, I get the chance to cook a lot more meat.”

This will be the third appearance at the James Beard House for Zweiban, and his second Wine Lovers’ Dinner. We hear there may be new ventures in store for 2005, so come out for a preview of things to come from this exciting young chef.