Annual Taste of the Nation in Dallas serves 200 expensive meals on Sunday

by Teresa Gubbins

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Four courses and more wine than you could ever possibly want.

The 2009 version of Taste of the Nation, an annual fund-raising food event whose proceeds go to fighting childhood hunger, took over F.I.G. Gallery on Ross Avenue on Sunday with:

• four-course meals prepared by Dallas top chefs
• too much beer and wine
• big-spenders who paid $500 per ticket or up to $10,000 for an entire table.

Chef Stephan Pyles served as Honorary Chair, as did Paper City regular Carmaleta Whiteley.

But the night's attention-getter was chef John Tesar. Along with publicist Terri Provencal, he signed on to be a chair while still at the Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek. But then he left the Mansion in January. Not a Dallas chef anymore! Still, he came back. Because we still care about him -- deeply. At T.O.T.N., he announced that he's opening a restaurant called Tesar's Modern Steak and Sustainable Seafood in The Woodlands in August.

Tesar was one of 20 or so chefs at the event, a roster that included Sharon Hage of York Street, Scott Gottlich of Bijoux, Julian Barsotti of Nonna, Tracy Miller of Local, Lynae Fearing of Shinsei.

Why this was better than the usual "tasting": They did a sit-down dinner. True, you didn't get to sample bites from every chef -- but your table of 10 did get a nice four-course meal. Some tables (hello, Nonna) got five courses.

Other participating restaurants included Craft, Charlie Palmer, the Landmark, Nobu, Fearing's, Cibus, and Sangria.

The tables that went most quickly were Tesar's, Fearing's, and Charlie Palmer. We got Sangria, which was filled entirely with other deadbeats non-paying attendees, including the guys who did the AV/slide show and three cowboy-hatted auctioneers from South Texas who did not say "hi" when we sat down.

Just like in Madrid, Sangria paced its four courses really slow. Everyone drank a lot of wine. But ha, those unfriendly auctioneers had to start the auction before the last two courses were served. I ate their fava beans; someone had to do it.

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