Asheville Chef Katie Button wins prestigious culinary competition

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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Asheville Chef Katie Button of Curate restaurant on Biltmore Avenue has been named the winner of the Robb Report’s first ever Culinary Masters Competition. This is a big honor. Congratulations to Katie!

Here’s the big news for Curate on Facebook:

Nominated by José Andrés, and besting the protégés of Eric Ripert, Michael Mina, Charlie Palmer, and Masa Takayama, Button takes home the title of New Culinary Master for 2013!

Button—whose competition dinner was held at Beverly House, a 50,000-square-foot pink stucco home built in Beverly Hills in 1927 and later owned by William Randolph Hearst—thrilled judges with a menu that effortlessly crossed the cultural distances between North Carolina’s hill country and the Catalan coast, reinterpreting Spanish classics and inventing new dishes along the way.

“I really wanted to do a menu that was about Spain but also represented me and my background,” said Button, who gave up a fellowship in biomedical engineering to pursue a culinary career.

“Katie was awesome that night like she always is,” Andrés said. “She works so well under pressure and I’m really proud of her performance that night. She could not have done better.

All the competition dinners, which took place in the fall in Los Angeles and New York, benefited a charity of the master chef’s choice. An additional contribution was made to World Central Kitchen, the charity José Andrés selected. For full details on the charities, as well as additional information, images, and recipes from each competition dinner, go t0 www.robbreport.com/culinarymasters.

Here’s the story from the Robb Report.