Wine, Dine and Talk with the Area's Best Chefs During Celebrity Chef Tour

Jim Bologna, executive chef of the Rugby Grille at the , once aspired to be a Navy fighter pilot. When his plans to attend the U.S. Naval Academy fell through, he recalled, “My mom said, 'You like food and people.’ ”

And so he went from flying to flambé, enrolling in Michigan State University‘s hospitality program. “My first cooking class, I took to it like a duck to water,” he said.

This Thursday, he will host some of the Midwest's top culinary talents as the Rugby Grille presents the only Michigan edition of this year’s Celebrity Chef Tour.

Guests will enjoy a seven-course dinner, fine wines and the best in Belgian beers and have the opportunity to talk informally with chefs Bologna, David Gilbert of Birmingham's (and formerly with the Rugby Grille) and Aaron Butts of Joseph Decuis in Roanoke, IN.

The tour benefits the James Beard Foundation, a New York City-based nonprofit organizaation dedicated to celebrating, nurturing and preserving America’s diverse culinary heritage and future.

According to Jeff Black, president of the tour, the dinners have raised more than $950,000 for the foundation during the past eight years.

In the past four years, the foundation awarded scholarships ranging in amounts from $2,000 to $4,250 to several young Michigan chefs. And during the past 25 years, more than 20 of Michigan’s finest chefs — from Keith Famie to Brian Polcyn — have had the honor of cooking dinners at the James Beard House in Greenwich Village.

Bologna said he met Butts, one of the Townsend event’s guest chefs, at a James Beard House dinner and invited him to visit Birmingham.

Butts and Gilbert were semifinalists in the foundation’s Best Chef Awards this year.

Approximately 100 guests are expected for the dinner. “Some hotel regulars are flying in just for the event,” Bologna said.

Black said the dinners are designed for no more than 120 people. “That way, the chefs have the opportunity to touch every plate,” he said. “It’s not a banquet. People can chat with the sommelier. The chefs walk through the crowd and talk to guests,” Black said.

He added that the questions guests typically ask chefs range from, “How do you pair the wine?” to “Where did you get the truffles?” The most unusual question? According to Black, at an event in San Francisco, chef Elizabeth Falkner was asked, “Are you single?”

The evening will begin with passed appetizers, champagne, wine and Stella Artois lager in the Townsend's Tea Lobby. Guests will then proceed to the ballroom for the dinner.

Bologna will be responsible for the second and fourth courses of the seven-course meal, with the other two chefs alternating courses.

“It’s our chance to shine, to do things the Townsend way, the way nobody's seen this event done,” Bologna said. He added that they’ll create "subtle ambiance, little nuances.”

The ballroom’s décor “will have more of a dining/restaurant feel,” said Bologna, with lit linen pillars and floral touches and the musical accompaniment of a jazz guitarist.

Bologna is so dedicated to his job that he spends seven days a week at the hotel. A “day off” might mean being at the restaurant for just five or six hours.

He said he appreciates what the Townsend aspires to. “It would be easy to be a ho-hum hotel restaurant, where everything is bake-and-serve. But we want this to be the best from top to bottom.”

He said that as a chef, there’s really nothing completely new in the world. “People have been eating since the dawn of fire.”

But each chef brings his own touch, his own style. For instance, Bologna said, Gilbert is “French-influenced” while Butts, working at a restaurant that owns its own farm and emphasizes local in-season cuisine, has a “farm-to-table concept.”

Bologna also said that being a chef requires great people skills. With the prevalence of cooking shows, “chefs are pseudo-rock stars,” he said.

Bologna admitted to perhaps a little bit of a rivalry with Gilbert because the pair both worked at the Townsend. But he added, “This is about the cause, and a celebration of food and friends.”

This event “is one of the few charities that gives back to the culinary universe,” he said.

Black added, “The dinner is half the cost of what people would pay to just go to a restaurant and order a seven-course meal with wine. They wouldn’t normally be able to sit down with a chef and have this experience.”

If you go:

• What: The Celebrity Chef Tour
• When: 6 p.m. Thursday
• Where: The Townsend Hotel
• Price: $160 per person, inclusive. (Exclusive price for U.S. Bank Travel Rewards Visa Signature cardholders: $110 per person, inclusive.)
• For more: To see the planned menu for Thursday night's meal, check out some of Jim Bologne's blog posts for Patch: