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America's Best New Chefs
2001

Kelly Courtney

1 Recipe by Kelly Courtney

Where are they now?

In 2002, Courtney left Chicago’s Mod restaurant and moved to Venice Beach. California, to work on documentaries about environmentally friendly cooking and living. She is currently partnering with the Outdoor Channel on a hunting and fishing show and plans to open an organic taqueria as well as a dumpling house in Southern California.

Won Best New Chef at: Mod, Chicago (closed)


2001 Best New Chef Award Profile

Restaurant at the time of award
Mod
910 Fairfield Avenue, #1
Chicago IL 60622
(773) 252-1500

Why Because she successfully transplants the California farm-produce fetish to the capital of the Midwestern farm belt.

Born 1967, Columbia, SC.

Experience Square One and Stars, San Francisco.

Earliest food memory Eating wild pig roasted on a sugarcane spit while living with her grandmother in Pahokee, in south Florida.

First thing cooked Pan-fried bluegills she caught herself.

How she learned to hunt From her father. "We'd get quail, turkey, deer, ducks. It's not a sport for him; he only hunts for what he eats."

Vice Smoked oysters on Triscuits.

Dislike "I hate button mushrooms more than anything in the world."

Favorite musician Dolly Parton.

Ambition "I really want a farm and the tackiest ranch house I can find, with sliding glass doors and a pool with a slide and a tiki bar out back. the full Boogie Nights setup."

About her recipe Courtney says her Brined Pork Chops with Mascarpone Mac and Cheese "screams of the American dinner table, but it also has a superclean, modern feel."


Featured Best New Chef Recipe

Pork Chop, Corn and Mascarpone Macaroni and Cheese

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