Born-and-Raised Portlander Gabriel Pascuzzi Talks âTop Chefâ
The chef-owner of Mama Bird, Stacked Sandwich Shop, and the soon-to-come Feel Good talks about life on reality TV.
By
Katherine Chew Hamilton
5/24/2021 at 5:00pm
Gabriel rises to the challenge in Episode 1.
This season of
Top Chef featured two Portland chefs: Sara Hauman, who s currently the executive chef at Soter Vineyards in Carlton, and Gabriel Pascuzzi, a born-and-raised Portlander who currently owns wood-fired chicken and veggies restaurant Mama Bird and Stacked Sandwich Shop. (We atÂ
PoMo Best Restaurants award in 2017.) His new, long-anticipated grain bowl restaurant, Feel Good, is expected to open this month. Even when heâs not busy slaying quickfire challenges using local mushrooms like he did in Episode 6, heâs always proudly repping Portland. He recently took fellow cheftestant Jamie Tran around town to eat wings at Prey & Tell, go hiking and morel hunting, and check out
Of all of the Bravo s
Top Chef challenges, none is more revered and feared among the contestants than Restaurant Wars. However, the stakes were even higher for the two teams in Season 18, who, instead of executing two pop-up restaurant concepts as usual, were tasked with serving the judges a seven-course tasting menu at each of their respective chef s tables due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
What didn t change was the fact that one chef still had to go home at the end of the Elimination Challenge. That was unfortunately Sara Hauman. Although the judges enjoyed her crispy salmon skin with pak choi, turnips, and hazelnut brown butter sauce, they weren t as big of fans of her other dish, a halibut crudo with ajo blanco sauce and confit green tomato.
Sara Hauman Dishes on Her Time at Top Chef Portland pdxmonthly.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from pdxmonthly.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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“Top Chef: Portland,” Episode 7 Recap: Is Portland Over? It’s the last-chance dance for one of this season’s local cheftestants. IMAGE: David Moir/Bravo. Updated May 14 Last week, we were left with the promise that local chef Gabriel Pascuzzi and his eliminated partner, Nelson German, from Oakland, Calif., would be headed straight back from the Gorge to the Top Chef Kitchen to face off in a sudden death
Last Chance Kitchen. The winner would get to reenter the game for another shot at the title.