Food & Wine Luxury Hotels

A gal’s favourite type of chef

Now THIS is a gal’s favourite type of chef – he looks real and healthy and interested, plus interesting (don’t we all hate pompous culinarians with beer-belly fronts, those that hark back to the days when it was said ‘never trust a skinny chef’). Today, the maxim is only trust a healthy chef. Anyway, this is Curtis Stone, the 35-year old Melbourne-born guy who forsook a degree in Business for his first love, food.

Chef Curtis Stone

Chef Curtis Stone

He has just been signed by IHG’s Indigo to help promote local foods in Indigo hotels across the USA. I was lucky enough to visit the first-ever Indigo, which opened in Atlanta GA in 2004.

A 1923-vintage university fraternity house which then became the Carlton Hotel, I loved the 140-room hotel’s collateral, things like door numbers and front-desk signage, all of which changed in pattern every quarter (just like retail, said then-GM, or In-Keeper Gabriel Webster). She hosted Canine Cocktails every Tuesday, inviting local dogs and their owners in to drink from a variety of beautifully-decorated dog bowls… lots of fun.

Today, there are dozens of Indigos, across the USA and further afield. Curtis Stone will visit some of the American hotels, and a Locals Know Best – Dish on the Dish competition, via Facebook, will result in lucky people winning an all-paid trip to New York City, http://www.facebook.com/hotelindigo