2016 Special Guests

Carissa Chappellet, Artist, Author, Photographer, Vintner, Jill-of-Many-Trades, Chappellet Winery

Carissa works as an attorney and ambassador at large for her family’s company, Chappellet Winery. For years she wanted to combine her artistic talents with her work life, and in 2010 she wrote, The Dragons of Pritchard Hill, a fantasy about the dragons living on the property where her family farms their grapes. Her colorful dragons delighted her family, (who are also the company board members), and the decision was made to allow Carissa to create a new dragon each year to be featured on the Chappellet Malbec.

In addition to acrylic painting, Carissa is an avid photographer and often combines digital media and reproduces her work as aluminum metal prints.

Her love for dragons is surpassed only by her love for her Vizsla, Tuk.

Carissa is a published author, her current works include: The Romance of California Vineyards, The Dragons of Pritchard Hill, and Poetic Moon.

Shauna Rosenblum, winemaker, Rock Wall Wines

Shauna Rosenblum is Winemaker for Rock Wall Wine Company. She learned everything she knows about winemaking from her father Kent Rosenblum who is CEO. Kent and Shauna Rosenblum are a father and daughter team committed to limited production winemaking geared to their tastes and sense of fun and adventure.

Kent brings over 35 years of wine- making experience and daughter Shauna literally grew up in the cellar. After building Rosenblum Winery from a 400- to a 250,000-case producer, Founder/Winemaker Kent Rosenblum sold the winery in 2008, and then started up Rock Wall Wine Co, with Shauna, as winemaker. “We wanted to go back to a family business that focused on great wines and having a good time,” says Kent.

Shauna spent her childhood in wineries and vineyards where she has worked and learned all the facets of the winemaking business. Shauna has a Master’s degree in Sculpture from the San Francisco Art Institute. As an undergraduate, she became very interested in chemistry through the ceramics glaze making process. She realized the crossover in the ceramics and winemaking processes as far as chemistry and it became very clear that her father had been grooming her to be a part of the family business her whole life.

From winegrowing regions to winemaking techniques, for Kent, making wine has always been about a willingness to explore viticultural regions and experiment with winemaking techniques, which is the legacy he has passed on to his daughter. Today, Shauna heads up the cellar at the 25,000-case family venture, with Kent as CEO. A family affair Rock Wall is about having fun, while making the best wines from the best regions and sharing the experience with others.

Chefs Andy Ticer & Michael Hudman

Born and bred Memphians, Andy Ticer and Michael Hudman opened Andrew Michael Italian Kitchen in 2008 to feature innovative Italian cooking rooted in Southern tradition. The chefs trained at Johnson and Wales University in Charleston, South Carolina and the Italian Culinary Institute in Calabria, Italy.

Their newest restaurant, Hog & Hominy, is a wood burning, neighborhood eatery and has been named one of the top new restaurants by GQ Magazine, Southern Living, and Bon Appetit as well as a semi-finalist for Best New Restaurant from the James Beard Foundation, which also named the chefs semi-finalists for the Best Chef: Southeast award for three consecutive years in 2012, 2013, and 2014. In 2013, they were awarded Food & Wine Magazine’s Best New Chefs Award and named in Starchefs.com’s 2014 Kentucky-Tennessee Rising Star Chefs. In his review of the restaurants in 2013, Pete Wells of the New York Times called the restaurants “A sibling rivalry worth diving into.”

Early 2015 saw the opening of the chefs’ third space, a craft butcher shop and café, complete with classic pastries, coffee, espresso and cicchetti served in the dim sum style. Porcellino’s Craft Butcher received four stars from The Commercial Appeal and made the Bon Appetit list of Top 50 new restaurants for 2015. The chefs have announced two new restaurants to debut in 2016: Catherine & Mary’s in Downtown Memphis and Josephine Estelle in New Orleans in partnership with the Ace Hotel.

Chef Chad Harrison

Chef Chad Harrison began his kitchen career washing dishes, working his way to the line before attending James Madison University where he received his Bachelor’s of Arts in Philosophy. After college,Harrison enrolled in culinary school at Johnson and Wales before moving to Oxford, MS where he trained under James Beard Nominated Chef Vhishwesh Bhatt at Snackbar, one of James Beard Award winning chef John Currence’s highly successful restaurants. Harrison moved to Memphis to work at Andrew Michael Italian Kitchen, where he has, over the past three years, moved from garde manger to sous chef.

Chef Kayla Palmer

Originally from California, Kayla Palmer studied at the Culinary Institute of America. She then worked under John Currence at City Grocery in Oxford where she met Michael & Andy. Upon graduation, she moved to Memphis and began work at Hog & Hominy. Following her passion for baking, Palmer began making desserts at both restaurants, eventually moving full time to Andrew Michael Italian Kitchen. After receiving the position of pastry chef for the restaurant group and running the pastry kitchen at Porcellino’s Craft Butcher, Kayla continued her education staging under Andrew Ullom at Joule in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Chef Ryan Jenniges

Before leading the kitchen of Andrew Michael Italian Kitchen, Ryan Jenniges spent his childhood in a relatively small city in Iowa, where his views growing up were mostly corn fields and farmland. He often helped his parents in the garden that was always full of various produce and herbs. During many of his summers, he and his family would travel to his grandparents’ farms in Minnesota and spend days canning vegetables and fruits and occasionally, butchering chickens for the various families to take home.

Upon graduation from high school, he studied industrial technology at Iowa State University while supporting himself with various kitchen and catering jobs throughout his undergraduate career. This is ultimately where he found a love for food and for cooking for others.

After receiving his Bachelor’s of Science, he found his way to Houston, TX and began culinary school at the Culinary Institute LeNôtre. After culinary school, he earned a position at The Tasting Room in Houston, training under chef David Coffman, whom he followed to *17, a fine dining American restaurant in the historic, Sam Houston Hotel.

After moving to Memphis, he soon gained a position on the line at Andrew Michael Italian Kitchen. Under the guidance of chefs Andy Ticer and Michael Hudman, he learned much about what authentic Italian food is, what southern food is and what their vision was for Italian food with southern influences. Not long after, he assumed the position of sous chef, and after countless hours and many nights with little sleep, he established his kitchen systems needed to run Andrew Michael Italian Kitchen, leading to his promotion to Chef de Cuisine.

Chef Salvador Avila

Salvador Avila is an accomplished chef with 14 years of experience in all aspects of restaurant kitchen operations from line cook to Executive Chef. Sal has deep roots in Middle Tennessee. Before moving to Nashville he grew up in nearby Columbia, Tennessee. Prior to beginning work on the concept for Prima, Sal was the Executive Chef at 360 Bistro, receiving rave reviews from the restaurant’s patrons and many in the local media. Sal has also worked in various roles for local favorites City House, Martin’s Bar-B-Que Joint, Burger Up and Josephine.

Sal received his formal training at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco, graduating with honors. He then went to work in many of the Bay Area’s finest restaurants to hone his skills in all aspects of menu planning, food preparation, staff management and restaurant operations. In preparation for his dream to launch his own dining concept, Sal worked in many different roles including meats, pastry, breads, fruits and salads, pantry, pizza oven, sauté, butcher and Sous chef. His west coast experience includes many of America’s finest restaurants such as The Hotel Monaco and Grand Café in San Francisco and The Ritz-Carlton at Half Moon Bay. In addition to his restaurant experience, Sal has also worked in catering and has served as a Private Chef in Northern California and Middle Tennessee.

Chef Tandy Wilson

It started with cornbread. No written recipe. Just an oral blueprint passed down from his mother and her mother before that. It was these women in his life who would cultivate Tandy Wilson’s appreciation for food early on and ignite his cooking philosophy of “heart and soul.” It wasn’t until his first job at The Orangery while attending the University of Knoxville that Tandy realized his love of cooking could turn into a career. Quickly transitioning from behind the dish pit to behind the line, Tandy was given a culinary school textbook by Chef Kevin Fults. He was instructed to work his way through it – a step in the right direction.

After graduating with a degree in Hotel & Restaurant Administration in 2000, Tandy moved to Arizona where he attended Scottsdale Culinary Institute. A year later he was placed at the highly acclaimed Tra Vigne restaurant in Saint Helena where he first met good friend and mentor, Nate Appleman. Nate’s enthusiasm for Italian cuisine sparked excitement and eventually led Tandy on a two-month journey through Italy. With both Italian restaurant training and travel in his repertoire, Tandy came home to his roots in 2004. It was in Nashville while working as sous chef for Margot McCormack at Margot Café where he sharpened his skills and developed his own dream to open a restaurant.

City House opened in December of 2007 in Nashville’s historic Germantown in a nineteenth century brick building once housing the working space for artist and sculptor, Alan LeQuire. It is here where Tandy showcases his love of fresh, local ingredients on an almost nightly basis while bridging the gap between authentic Italian cuisine and down-home Southern cooking.

Tandy’s dedication to quality along with some Southern-Italian flare has gotten the attention of the James Beard Foundation – having nominated him as a semi-finalist for Best Chef Southeast in 2013, 2014 and 2015. His name regularly appears in Bon Appetit and he was named “Best New Chef in the Southeast” by Food & Wine magazine. But at the heart of it all, Tandy Wilson is a true Southern boy with a passion for good food and its humbling ability to bring folks together. And that’s exactly what one will find when walking through the doors of Tandy’s City House – food and family.

Chef Levon Wallace

A California native and graduate of the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco, Wallace apprenticed at some of the city’s finest restaurants before becoming Chef de Cuisine at the Ojai Valley Inn receiving the coveted AAA Five Diamond Award. In 2008, opportunity lead him to Martha’s Vineyard where he worked as Executive Chef for two boutique hotels on the New England Coast before becoming Corporate Executive Chef for Scout Hotels, overseeing five properties with six restaurants.

In 2012, Wallace joined Proof on Main in Louisville‘s 21c Museum Hotel as Executive Chef. He made a very successful integration into the Southern food scene during his tenure there, earning him a number of accolades, including the title of 2014 Rising Star Chef from StarChefs.com. He is an active member of the James Beard Foundation and participated in the inaugural Chefs Boot Camp for Policy & Change.

In summer 2015 Wallace headed to Nashville to open Cochon Butcher Nashville as its Executive Chef.