Of all the “charity eat-a-thons” in this town, my favorite by far is the Chef Celebration, a series of extraordinary banquets crafted by some of the county’s top chefs and held at several of the finest (and most comfortable) restaurants in the area. At each dinner, five chefs collaborate on a five-course menu, each taking on one or two dishes. It’s fun for them to work together, and fun for us to eat the brilliant results. The price per dinner is $65, plus beverages and tip, with $35 of that amount tax-deductible as a charitable contribution. (What a deal!) An optional matched wine-flight of two-ounce pours for each course is $18. For more menu information and reservations, please contact host restaurants directly by phone or email or visit chefcelebration.org.

As a foodie, I have many reasons for loving this event — most of them somewhat selfish. Not only are these dinners probably the best restaurant meals you’ll eat all year, but the Chef Celebration raises money for a cause that ultimately benefits the whole San Diego dining public. The money goes into a scholarship fund that sends midlevel working chefs with at least two years of restaurant experience (typically cooks, line chefs, and sous-chefs) to the CIA (Culinary Institute of America) in Napa for a week, to take intensive courses in culinary areas and techniques where they feel a need for more education. When they return, they bring their new skills and ideas to your table.

Among the early scholarship beneficiaries were Damaso Lee, who went on to become head chef at Trattoria Acqua (and host-kitchen of one of this year’s dinners), and Hanis Cavin of Kensington Grill, who at that time was working at Deborah Helms’s now-defunct Mixx, a homey, bohemian sort of place in Hillcrest. “I chose to go to Greystone in Napa Valley,” Cavin recalls, “and I took an advanced charcuterie course. For a chef, it’s pure heaven, because it’s working with all the less-desirable pieces, learning how to make them be desirable. I had an excellent teacher. Made you really see the potential of every piece of product, whether it be a scrap of celery or the cheeks of a cow — that all of it can be edible. Of course, that attitude stayed with me and helped me in the rest of my career. It helps you stay in business. Instead of throwing away something, you say, ‘Maybe I can make a soup of this or a pâté out of that.’ I lucked out and ate out at French Laundry that week. It’s really hard to go up against that week in my life. It exposed my eyes to everything that can happen with food and to people as old as I am now still feeling the passion for cooking, still loving what they do every day — as I still do.”

In the early years, some of the scholarships were for longer periods, farther afield: One chef went to the New England Culinary Institute, another to Paris. They never returned. (How ya gonna keep ’em down on the farm after they’ve seen Paree?) Now, the foundation’s board of directors probes candidates closely for a commitment to work here. They’ve also made a formal alliance with the CIA for a 15 percent reduction in tuition and room and board, and the scholarships are exclusively for study there.

The banquets themselves are true delights — calm, comfortable, exquisitely delicious. They aren’t society events — they’re foodie events. You don’t need to flash designer duds nor conform to the socialite norm in some pricey pastel suit from Saks. (You’re just going to a nice restaurant.) Nor do you have to jostle with the hungry hordes, as you do at those vast charity eat-o-ramas with dozens of chefs serving wee bites to huge crowds balancing small paper plates in one hand, wine glasses in the other, with nowhere to sit, and frantically competing for celebrity-chef nibbles. Those events can be interesting — but they’re not particularly happy meals; in fact, some of the food served can be remarkably disappointing. Here, in contrast, you reserve a table for whatever time you want dinner, sit down, and enjoy five courses of amazing, luxurious dishes that are generally not on the regular menus. At the Celebrations, the chefs can freely unleash their creativity without having to dumb down their ideas for timid-tummied tourists or conventioneers. They’re the best in the business, simultaneously cooperating and competing with each other to do their best work. You’ll even get to meet them face to face when they come out to mingle.

They’re also able to serve more luxurious ingredients than they might use on a daily basis, as you’ll see from the menus we were able to gather by press time. “It’s really a culinary extravaganza,” says current board of directors president Jeff Rossman, chef of Terra Restaurant in Hillcrest. “Every time I’ve done it, the chefs go crazy with the menu items. For $65, it’s an unbelievable deal. A lot of the purveyors donate ingredients. It’s a good symbiotic relationship. And some restaurant owners donate out of the coffers. That’s how we feel about helping our own, to try and send the line cooks and sous-chefs and pastry chefs up to Napa, to come back with some great ideas to help San Diego. We think it’s one of the only events of its kind.”

The Chef Celebrations were founded 13 years ago by Ed Moore, of the Third Corner. At that time, the dinners were held in spring, twice a week for about six weeks, all of them staged at Moore’s restaurant Thee Bungalow (now sold to the Cohn Restaurant Group). Over time, other restaurant owners were eager to participate and share the workload (and cachet), so eventually the event evolved into today’s “movable feast.” With Moore in semiretirement, he was eager to hand over the reigns as board president a couple of years ago; Jeff Rossman was willing to take them.

The way it works is the chef of each host restaurant assembles his or her team of chefs — chefs with compatible cooking styles and personalities, often from restaurants in the same geographic area. (Given the long, late hours chefs work, who can they pal around with but other chefs?) Some team leaders negotiate who gets to cook which course with their team members; others hand out assignments. Then the participating chefs explode with ideas for their courses, emailing back and forth. The team leaders coordinate the final choices so that no two dishes in a meal will repeat the same flavors.

The chefs donate their time. The $30 of the price that doesn’t go for scholarships pays for purchased ingredients, waitstaff, dishwashers, laundry, etc. — the normal costs of the restaurant business. The event is so prestigious that most of the top toques in town are eager to be chosen and are crestfallen if they’re not. This year, the Celebration has been reduced to just once a week, but in the future it may expand again, possibly to a semiannual event with spring and fall sessions. “When we did it twice a week, there were such good chefs and teams and menus, not everybody could get to them all,” says Rossman. “We actually had complaints where people said there were just too many. So this year we scaled back to do just five [dinners]. There are always a lot of problems with the details that go into this. We start planning it back in April, and we try to meet once a month. The other problem is that itrun by chefs, and we don’t have a whole lot of free time for marketing and so forth. It’s a difficult undertaking.”

The value of the Celebration sometimes only reveals itself in hindsight. Indirectly, one Celebration helped sow the seeds for a quiet revolution in San Diego dining that we’ve almost come to take for granted: In 2002, Moore and colleague Deborah Schneider (now head of food operations at the Del Mar Racetrack) focused the event on bringing together San Diego chefs with local North County farms growing organic or sustainably raised produce. Many of the top chefs were already trekking to Chino Farms, or to local farmers’ markets, of course, but at the next level down, too many eateries were still immune to the California Cuisine revolution of the 1970s. They remained completely in thrall to Sysco, the giant restaurant-supply company, and the results of that dependency contributed to San Diego’s well-deserved reputation as a culinary backwater. The farm-to-table Celebration seemed to be a genuine consciousness-raising event, a turning point in spreading Bay Area–style fine ingredients and locavore cuisine much more widely and deeply. Today, instead of finding the dire, flavorless “Sysco Veggie Medley” on nearly every plate, we find the names of Crow’s Pass, Connelly Farms, Valdivia Farms, et al. on the menus and enjoy the vibrant tastes of real, fresh food.

2008 Chef Celebration Schedule

Wednesday, October 1: Terra 619-293-7088, terrasd.com

1270 Cleveland Ave., ste. K, San Diego CA 92103

• Jeff Rossman, Terra Restaurant
• Colin MacLaggan, Avenue 5
• Victor Jimenez, Cowboy Star
• Joe Magnanelli, Laurel
• Chris Walsh, Bite

MENU

AMUSE

Basil Flan, shallot rings, curry oil (Jeff Rossman)

FIRST COURSE

Restyled caprese salad with heirloom tomatoes, opal basil vinaigrette, and balsamic gelée (Chris Walsh)

SECOND COURSE

Marinated hiramasa, tempura Dungeness crab, bamboo rice, green curry (Joe Magnanelli)

THIRD COURSE

Duck confit and foie gras tortellini, bitter greens, brandy cherries, candied pecans, English Stilton, port reduction (Colin MacLaggan)

MAIN COURSE

Dry-aged beef strip loin, oxtail ravioli, wilted greens, Bordelaise sauce (Victor Jimenez)

DESSERT DUET

Quince tarte tatin, butternut squash ice cream (Jeff Rossman)

Gorgonzola cheesecake with grilled figs and zinfandel-Tellicherry peppercorn syrup (Chris Walsh)

Tuesday, October 7: Bernard’O 858-487-7171, bernardorestaurant.com

12457 Rancho Bernardo Road, San Diego CA 92128

• Patrick Ponsaty, Bernard’O
• Vincent Grumel, Vincent’s Sireno
• Steven Rojas, El Bizcocho
• Jonathan Freyberg, Bernard’O
• Loïc Laffargue, Barona Resort & Casino

MENU

FIRST COURSE

Kumamoto oyster and Santa Barbara sea urchin, passion fruit, orange-blossom water, compressed cucumber (Steven Rojas)

SECOND COURSE

Blackened scallop with candied orange, micro-green salad (Vincent Grumel)

MAIN COURSE

Pheasant sous vide stuffed with foie gras, cardamom, and chestnut mousse, black trumpet mushroom, pheasant reduction (Patrick Ponsaty)

CHEESE COURSE

“Black Butterfly” Roquefort bleu cheese, sauterne aspic, walnut bread, honeycomb (Jonathan Freyberg)

PRE-DESSERT

Green apple/lemon sorbet, lemon confit, apple and lemon chips

DESSERT

Croustillant chocolate, confiture de lait; Flourless cake, chocolate crispy, milk jam ice cream, caramel fleur de sel, gianduja chantilly (Loïc Laffargue)

MIGNARDISES

Small sweets

Tuesday, October 14:
Pamplemousse Grille
858-792-9090, pgrille.com

514 Via de la Valle, Solana Beach CA 92075

• Brian Malarkey, Oceanaire Seafood Room
• Tommy DiMella, Pamplemousse
• Ryan Harris, Pamplemousse
• Paul McCabe, J. Taylor’s L’Auberge Del Mar
• Jim Phillips, Barona Resort and Casino

MENU

AMUSE

Fall heirloom compressed squash, Julian apple pearls, bacon

FIRST COURSE

Bouquet of local lettuces, warm Cabrales vinaigrette
Or
Duck schnitzel, pear-apple chutney, duck confit ravioli, saba reduction

SECOND COURSE

Abalone with ginger, garlic and brown butter
Or
Corn agnolotti, Maine lobster, chanterelles, and tangerine

MAIN COURSE

Prosciutto-wrapped Boston scallops, black Mission fig, balsamic syrup
Or
Loin of lamb, braised shoulder, sweet-potato tart
Or
Dry-aged New York, natural braised short rib, manchego
croquette, black trumpet mushrooms, truffle braising jus

TRIPLE DESSERT

Vanilla bean panna cotta, bittersweet chocolate-orange cake, passion fruit sabayon

Tuesday, October 21: Trattoria Acqua, 858-454-0709, trattoriaacqua.com

1298 Prospect Street, La Jolla CA 92037

• Damaso Lee, Trattoria Acqua
• Tony DiSalvo, Jack’s La Jolla
• Jason Knibb, Nine-Ten
• Orion Balliet, Azul La Jolla
• Amy DiBiase, Roseville

(Check Chef Celebration website or restaurant website for menu)

Tuesday, October 28: Thee Bungalow 619-224-2884, theebungalow.com

4996 West Pt. Loma Blvd., San Diego CA 92107

• Paul Niles, Thee Bungalow
• Danny Bannister, Red Marlin
• Brian Freerksen, Baleen
• Dave Warner, JRDN
• Juan Flores, the Third Corner

(Check Chef Celebration or restaurant website for menu)