"Jose Andres" news and stories

At the very moment that shouts of terror -- "Get down! He has a gun!" -- ripped through the Bellagio casino in Las Vegas yesterday morning during a $1.5 million stick-up, chef José Andrés was standing at a roulette wheel watching the ball finally settle against the number he'd been betting all night.

"All of a sudden in the distance you see this person running and one person screams 'Get down!' And then you see everyone get down on the floor, the whole casino at once," Andrés told Slashfood.

He hit the deck along with his pal the artist Mikel Urmeneta.

"It was very weird to see an entire casino laying down, everyone on the floor," Andrés said.

Yesterday we kicked off our 12 days of chef-inspired gift giving with Top Chef Season 5's Carla Hall. Stay tuned every morning from now through December 24th for ideas from the pros on the best gifts for cooks.

Chef: José Andrés

Restaurants: The Bazaar by José Andrés (Los Angeles, CA), Jaleo and China Poblano at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas (opening December 2010), and Washington D.C.'s Café Atlántico, Minibar, and more.

The Gift: "Spanish olive oil is the ingredient I cannot live without -- and that I love to give as a gift. It goes in everything and these days you can find great brands like Nuñez Prado or el Señorio de Vizcantar at supermarkets everywhere.

Where to Find It: The Bazaar by José Andrés, Los Angeles, CA

Follow the chefs' suggestions by clicking the links below:
The First Day of Christmas (Carla Hall)

Spanish Chef Ferran Adrià told Slashfood that he will be showing plans, photos and details of the much-anticipated "reinvention" of his legendary restaurant El Bulli at a press conference in New York City in March 2011.

Adrià said he has signed a deal with the multinational telecommunications company Telefónica to become a brand ambassador, and that he is working on details of the New York announcement with the company.

During an interview October 13 at the Hotel Eventi's Bar Basque after a screening of the documentary "A Day at El Bulli," he did share a few details about the major changes coming El Bulli, the restaurant in Roses, Spain which receives two million reservation requests a year for just a few thousand places.

The new El Bulli will be more like an educational foundation than a restaurant. "There will be no reservations," Adrià said through his friend and interprereter Chef José Andrés. "And everything will change every month."

What it won't be is limited to the cuisine that made it famous, Adrià's mind-bending innovations with molecular gastronomy. "It is going to be a bigger place, but a completely new philosophy. The main mission of the foundation will be to create, and where everything they create, they will be able to share through [the] internet everyday, with everyone around the world," Andrés explained.

Now that El Bulli, the world's most famous restaurant is closing, chef Ferran Adria can concentrate on other projects, like teaching a class at America's most famous college, Harvard University.

This fall Adria is teaming up with his old friend, Jose Andres to teach a 13-week 'culinary physics' course at Harvard. Andres runs several D.C. based restaurants and is often credited with introducing traditional Spanish cuisine to the U.S.

Other chefs will be joining them including Blue Hill's Dan Barber and Spanish compatriot Joan Roca (who has snagged his own Michelin star).

The course is not a typical cooking: the chefs will be instructing students on the abc's of physics and then moving onto demonstrations on how to make the emulsions and foams that are Adria's trademark.

Andres told Slashfood that "Harvard is a world-class university and when Harvard does something, other institutions around the world take notice. This is something completely new and I think you will see other universities starting similar programs."

The nation's top chefs and restaurants nominated for the highly coveted James Beard Foundation food and restaurant prizes were announced Monday.

There were five nominees in for the top chef prize, ABC News reported. Nominated this year are: Tom Colicchio of Craft in New York City, Gary Danko of San Francisco's Restaurant Gary Danko, Suzanne Goin of Lucques in Los Angeles, Jose Andres of Minibar in Washington, D.C. and Charles Phan of The Slanted Door in San Francisco.