Tory Miller answers his phone on the fourth ring and within a few seconds he's laughing. "Yes," Miller says. "It's my fault." Miller, chef of L'Etoile, Graze, Sujeo and Estrellón, is talking about the Madison Area Chef Network (MACN), which he founded in 2014.
Miller says he got the idea after attending a James Beard Foundation Boot Camp retreat with other politically minded chefs from around the country, where they talked about how to take action in their own communities. On his way home, Miller started thinking about Madison. "It's a small town, but a lot of us [chefs] didn't know each other," Miller says. "If we all support each other, the idea is to strengthen our food system through collaboration and communication." Miller says he put out a call to other chefs to come to his restaurant for drinks to discuss the idea, and 33 people showed up.
The rest, as they say, is history. Since forming in 2014, MACN members have met monthly to network and plan two chef-driven events for the public each year: Yum Yum Fest in late summer and Chef Week in the spring, which this year is presented with Isthmus and kicks off March 4.
It is no small task putting on a week of special events, and in the weeks leading up to the kick-off, the chefs involved are even busier than usual.
When I try to reach Jonny Hunter his phone goes to voicemail, but he calls back three minutes later. "Sorry," says Hunter, a founder and partner with Underground Food Collective and a board member of MACN. "I was on the train." Hunter is in New York City for an event at the Museum of Food and Drink, where he demonstrated how acids and bases affect cooking. Hunter credits Elizabeth Dahl of Nostrano with suggesting an event where chefs could collaborate with one another and be in charge of dreaming up mash-ups and restaurant takeovers.
Dahl doesn't want to take full credit, but says she got the idea from a similar event in Chicago. Dahl says it gives chefs the opportunity to stage events that suit their individual styles. "It's how we want to be creative,” she says. She loves that Chef Week is an opportunity to collaborate with other chefs and work in each other's kitchens. This year, Dahl is looking forward to welcoming chef Justin Carlisle of Ardent in Milwaukee back to Madison, to turn Nostrano into a late-night ramen joint.
When I catch up with Patrick DePula at Salvatore’s Tomato Pies on East Johnson Street, he arrives carrying a giant bag of sliced pepperoni and a cup of gas station coffee. The floor is being mopped so we head next door to Johnson Public House, where he fuels up on another cup of coffee. He takes the outline for Chef Week out of my hands and starts circling names and phone numbers. "Oh yeah, this one is going to be a lot of fun," he says.
DePula says Chef Week is not just an opportunity for chefs to showcase their talents and bring attention to Madison's food scene. It also serves one of MACN's main missions, which is to advocate for the use of locally grown food to build a sustainable food system here in Dane County. It's no surprise that these chefs, regular customers at Madison's farmers’ markets and local farms, have decided to make the final event of Chef Week (a street food event at Graze and L'Etoile) a fundraiser for Madison Area Farmers' Market Double Dollars Program, which allows people to match their FoodShare dollars up to $25 at local farmers’ markets. These chef-activists want to put their money where their mouths are.
Miller says Chef Week is especially exciting because of Madison’s relatively small size — he calls the city a “small town.” Hunter agrees: "I think it shows what's great about Madison. We are producing a lot of amazing events that rival bigger cities."
