Event location: PlumpJack Squaw Valley Inn CafÈ 1920 Squaw Valley Rd. Olympic Valley, CA

For more information or reservations for this dinner or any part of the Autumn Chef Series, please call (800) 323-7666, ext. 450.

We doubt it took much to convince a collection of California's most celebrated chefs (and one from Chicago) to accept Keith Luce's invitation to the luxurious PlumpJack Squaw Valley Inn in Lake Tahoe for this Friends of James Beard Benefit, the first of the Inn's Autumn Chef Series. The site of what promises to be an extraordinary culinary event was built to house the 1960 Winter Olympics delegation. And since it has come under the purview of Luce, who is executive chef of the PlumpJack collection of hotels, restaurants, and other hospitality-related businesses, it is quickly becoming known as a culinary destination in its own right. Let the games begin.

Luce, you will recall, was honored in 1998 as the James Beard Foundation Perrier-Jouêt Rising Star Chef. He was cooking at Chicago's Spruce at the time, but the mountains beckoned, and he took a job as executive chef of The Little Nell, a Relais & Ch[base ']teaux property in Aspen. Talk of an exceptional opportunity in San Francisco caught his ear. And in 1999, Luce signed on as executive chef of the PlumpJack group. The group includes several restaurants in Northern California, a winery, and an e-commerce venture, all of which, and more, make up the entrepreneurial vision of Gavin Newsome and Bill Getty, two young, audacious political and social players in the San Francisco scene.

Joining Luce will be Josiah Citrin, who is redefining formal fine dining at Mèlisse in Los Angeles, a city better known for its casual attitudes about food. Citrin first appeared on culinary radar in a major way when he and his partner Raphael Lunetta opened JiRaffe in Santa Monica in 1996-about which then Los Angeles critic Jonathan Gold wrote that it "feels like a real California bistro." John Mariani named it the Best New Restaurant of 1996, and Food & Wine put the partners on its list of Best New Chefs. Last year the team parted amicably, and Citrin set out to open a more formal venture. He's been pleasing palates at Mèlisse ever since.

Lucques's chef, Suzanne Goin, found her way to the kitchen while a student at Brown University, where she spent time with Al Forno chef/owners George Germon and Johanne Killeen. Stints at L.A.'s L'Orangerie and Chez Panisse in Berkeley, and in Europe at the Roux Brothers' Le Mazarin, Didier Oudill's Pain, Ardour et Fantaisie, and Alain Passard's ArpËge, readied her for some serious stateside cooking. She was sous-chef for Todd English at Olives in Boston and executive chef of Campanile. There she met her partner Caroline Styne, and Lucques was born. "Her flavors are bold; her cooking, unabashedly sensual," Los Angeles Times critic S. Irene Virbila wrote of Goin's cuisine at Lucques.

From San Francisco comes Traci Des Jardins, whose stylish lounge-cum-restaurant in San Francisco has received international acclaim. After completing apprenticeships in France with such greats as Michel and Pierre Troisgros, Alain Senderens, Alain Ducasse, and Alain Passard, Des Jardins cooked at Drew Nieporent's Montrachet in New York and Joachim Splichal's Patina in Los Angeles. She opened Aqua with George Morrone in San Francisco and Elka with Elka Gilmore. Nieporent snatched her back to open Rubicon in 1993, and after receiving two James Beard Foundation Awards-one for Rising Star Chef and one for Best New Restaurant-she left to open JardiniËre in 1997.

Rounding out the team is a non-California stray from Chicago who got there via France. Dominique Tougne learned his unique approach to French cooking while working with great French chefs such as JoÎl Robuchon and Jacques Senechal. French critics regarded him highly-Paris's Le Monde newspaper wrote, "In [French] cuisine today, chef Dominique Tougne is reshaping the way we think about bistros." Nevertheless, he left France to become executive chef of Bistro 110 in 1996. Considered a neighborhood favorite, Bistro 110 has a reputation that stretches far and wide. Celebrities from TV, film, and sports are regular diners, and Tougne's cooking continues to earn critical acclaim.

This Friends of James Beard dinner, PlumpJack's first collaboration with The James Beard Foundation, will be part of a three-day event, beginning with a welcome reception on Sunday and ending with a benefit dinner on Tuesday, September 26 prepared by Luce and his chef de cuisine, Tom Bugel. Proceeds will benefit the Lake Tahoe Summer Music Festival.

Though Tahoe has always been known as a beautiful vacation getaway, winter or summer, it has never been known for food. But now that the Autumn Chef Series has come on the scene, that is about to change.