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Margate's "Next Food Network Star"
• Local restaurateur asks "Where is Bobby Flay?"
Thursday,
August 6, 2009
It’s sundown on Thursday and Trattoria Bella Cibo is packed. Happy hour is jamming and a short wait for the dining room has people mingling in the lounge. This busy downtown eatery in Margate is the ‘new kid on the block’ and its Chef, Tommy Valdes, is quickly making a name for himself.
Valdes recently submitted his audition tape for season six of the hit TV show The Next Food Network Star and has launched a grassroots campaign challenging the show’s host, Bobby Flay, to come to Margate and ‘Throwdown’ against his secret recipe lasagna.
When asked what makes his lasagna so special, Valdes gets tight-lipped. “Great chefs don’t give away their recipes,” he said. “But I guarantee I've got the best lasagna.”
Should Valdes bring to the Food Network and its audience the same charisma he’s brought to Margate with Bella Cibo (Italian for ‘house of beautiful food’), he may be a shoe-in for The Next Food Network Star. More than about great food, contestants in the popular Food Network show compete on attitude, confidence and character, all of which Valdes possesses, including an ability to teach – a vital ingredient to winning the competition.
Learn how to make Tuscan Swordfish from Master Chef, Valdes.
Challenging Flay to a lasagna cook-off is promotional genius on behalf of Valdes and his staff. Instead of passively waiting for Flay to visit Bella Cibo unexpectedly in Throwdown,Valdes is asking customers in Margate to barrage Flay with emails encouraging him to accept Valdes’ ‘lasagna’ challenge and come to Margate.
“I’m saying, here we are in Margate Bobby, come and get us!” Valdes said, adding that the promotion isn’t just about his restaurant but about drawing attention to Margate and beautiful South Florida. “If we create enough buzz…it only takes a spark to start a forest fire.”
Click here and tell Flay he doesn’t have a chance against Valdes. Bring it on, come to Margate and "show us what you're made of Bobby" (once you get to the website click on the Ask Bobby tab).
While you’re at it, email the Food Network telling them the same. It’ll be good for Bella Cibo and great for the City of Margate.
Valdes is a CIA (Culinary Institute of America) graduate and former Marriott Executive Chef. He’s author of a book “Secrets of a Chef” published in 1996 and debuted on television two years later on both the Sally Jesse Raphael Show and the Food Network’s Cooking with the Stars.
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Copyright Cassius Group 2009
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