Executive Chef

Bill Sexton has been appointed the Executive Chef of Phillips Seafood Baltimore. Sexton, according to a news release, has served in several leadership positions with Phillips Foods and Seafood Restaurant. He started his career at Phillips Crab House in Ocean City and has been Phillips Director of research and development. "My Grandfather was a fisherman off Cobb Island, Maryland and I grew up loving the fresh seafood right from our Southern and Eastern Shores," Sexton said in the statement.

It's only been a year? A hit from the start, the Food Market opened on the eve of last year's Honfest. Co-owners Chad Gauss and Elan Kotz, the Food Market's executive chef and general manager, respectively, are celebrating their great first year with a birthday party at the Hampden restaurant on June 5. The party, a benefit for the Hampden Family Center , will include hors d'oeuvres and sweets provided by chefs and restaurateurs. The well-wishers providing food include Cyrus Keefer ( Fork & Wrench )

The Wine Market has elevated sous chef Andrew Weinzirl to the position of executive chef, the restaurant's owner, Chris Spann, announced on Oct. 14. Weinzirl takes over from Chris Becker, who left to join the Bagby Group. “I wanted to find a chef that understood my culinary philosophy but who also had his own approach to food,” said Spann in his press-release statement, who added that Weinzirl has been running the kitchen for a month prior to his promotion. After graduating from the Baltimore International College, Weinzirl put in time at Linwoods , The Dogwood and The Chameleon , with a sojourn in between at the James Beard-award dinning Highlands Bar and Grill in Birmingham, Ala. Among the offerings on Weinzirl's first Wine Market menu: lobster and pasnip soup, a house-made short-rib hot dog with apple kimchi, a pine nut and pinot noir risotto with wild mushrooms and Parmesan sage broth and a pan-roasted Creekstone Farms bistro steak with potato-kohlrabi gratin.

After seven years running his own kitchen at Salt , his Upper Fells Point restaurant that put duck-fat fries, Wagyu sliders and changing menus on Baltimore's food map, Jason Ambrose is stepping aside. Ambrose is turning over Salt's day-to-day kitchen operations to Brian Lavin, who joined the Salt team in 2010 and has been the restaurant's sous-chef for about a year and a half, according to Ambrose. "I made a decision I was going to take a step out," said Ambrose. "Brian came to me as a line cook with a tremendous interest in food.

The Bagby Restaurant Group has hired a new executive chef for Fleet Street Kitchen.  He is Chris Amendola,  most recently of Blue Hill at Stone Barns, a restaurant in Pocantico Hills, N.Y., that serves a $208 12-course "farmer's feast" menu. Chris Becker, who opened Fleet Street Kitchen last September, is now the executive chef for the entire Bagby operation, whose other restaurants include Bagby Pizza and Ten Ten. Becker, who was also recently named the group's chief operating officer, will be turning his focus to Cunningham's and Cunningham's Cafe & Bakery, which are scheduled to open this summer in the Towson City Center.

In his senior year of high school, Jared Rhine took his first full time job at a restaurant - the family-run Italian restaurant Rillo's in Carlisle, Pa. He started as a busboy, did food preparation and washed dishes before eventually moving to the back of the house as a cook. "I loved it so much; I've never looked back. " Now, the Butchers Hill resident, 31, is going into his sixth month as executive chef at Mount Vernon's City Cafe. Rhine has been busy preparing some new items on his menu for Baltimore Restaurant week (Friday through Aug. 5)

Bradley Willits is the new executive chef at B&O American Brasserie in the Hotel Monaco. Willits is the third executive chef at the Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants property, which opened in 2009, following E. Michael Reidt and Thomas Dunklin. Willits, 31, has more than 20 years of kitchen experience and education, having started his restaurant career at his father's cafe in Sarasota, Fla. His formative kitchen experience was at Tango, a Vero Beach, Fla., restaurant, where he trained under Ben Tench.

Season 5 "Top Chef" contestant Jill Snyder has a new gig. Snyder has left her chef de cuisine position at Woodberry Kitchen for Clementine . This is Snyder's first executive chef position since leaving Red Maple , shortly after her fleeting November 2008 appearance on "Top Chef. " Snyder's entrance into Clementine coincides with the promotion of sous chef Jeremy Price, who will be overseeing a new Clementine project at the Creative Alliance, a yet-to-be named cafe that will operate Thursday through Saturday evenings and Sunday brunch at the Highlandtown arts and cultural center.

Heavy Seas Alehouse will officially open February 15, the pub and restaurant announced this morning. It also confirmed that Matt Seeber, a former chef at Tom Colicchio's Craftsteak restaurant at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, will be its executive chef. "Baltimore at its core has a long-standing love affair with beer and we look forward to making an impression on the scene and raising the bar on the brewhouse experience," Seeber said in a statement. The new restaurant, located in Little Italy, licensed the name and trademark of the longtime Baltimore brewer, Heavy Seas Brewing, in November.

Michael Gabriel Spurlock, an executive chef and Hagerstown resident, died in an automobile accident Monday in Ocean View, Del. He was 25. Mr. Spurlock, a Hagerstown native, was a 1996 graduate of Hagerstown High School and a 1998 graduate of Baltimore International College culinary school. He began as sous chef at the Fountain Head Country Club and later was named executive chef at the Clarion Hotel and Conference Center, both in Hagerstown. He had taken a job recently as executive chef at the Fat Tuna Grille in Millville, Del. "He worked for Phillips in Ocean City one summer and that started him on his career.

Bradley Willits is the new executive chef at B&O American Brasserie in the Hotel Monaco. Willits is the third executive chef at the Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants property, which opened in 2009, following E. Michael Reidt and Thomas Dunklin. Willits, 31, has more than 20 years of kitchen experience and education, having started his restaurant career at his father's cafe in Sarasota, Fla. His formative kitchen experience was at Tango, a Vero Beach, Fla., restaurant, where he trained under Ben Tench.

"Top Chef" host Tom Colicchio stopped by Heavy Seas Alehouse on Friday afternoon with his new fishing buddy, the actor Josh Charles. The news of Colicchio's visit was circulated on social media by Heavy Seas executive chef Matt Seeber, who was the executive chef at Tom Colicchio's Craftsteak in Las Vegas before coming to Baltimore. Colicchio and Charles came to Heavy Seas to continue filming an episode of " Hooked Up With Tom Colicchio ," a YouTube series in which the chef goes on fishing expeditions with celebrities like Perry Farrell and Andy Cohen.

The Bagby Restaurant Group has hired a new executive chef for Fleet Street Kitchen.  He is Chris Amendola,  most recently of Blue Hill at Stone Barns, a restaurant in Pocantico Hills, N.Y., that serves a $208 12-course "farmer's feast" menu. Chris Becker, who opened Fleet Street Kitchen last September, is now the executive chef for the entire Bagby operation, whose other restaurants include Bagby Pizza and Ten Ten. Becker, who was also recently named the group's chief operating officer, will be turning his focus to Cunningham's and Cunningham's Cafe & Bakery, which are scheduled to open this summer in the Towson City Center.

After two years, the original owners of Zella's Pizzeria on Hollins Street are coming back. Julie Ernst and Cem Ari opened Zella's in 2007. It found a loyal following and helped to anchor the struggling Hollins Market neighborhood. They sold the business in 2010, but it floundered without them and eventually closed. In 2011, Ernst and Ari opened Toss , a pizzeria near the Senator Theatre in Rosebank, where they reunited with some of their old patrons, who encouraged them to return to Hollins Market.

Are you ready for some gumbo? At 6:30 p.m. on Sunday, February 3, when the Ravens take on the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XLVII, much of Baltimore will be watching, either from their stadium seats in New Orleans or here at home. Ravens fans not lucky enough to have tickets to the big game still have plenty of reason to celebrate at home in Baltimore, and they can do so in N'awlins style. According to local chefs with Louisiana roots, the Big Easy's cuisine is tailor-made for parties.

Victoria Gastro Pub Executive Chef Joe Krywucki reflects: Seasonal cooking is always best, especially when you have access to high quality ingredients. We use an all-natural Duroc pork, which has a superior flavor and tenderness, and local Baugher's Farm Honey Crisp apples. Pork Tenderloin 1.    Season the pork tenderloin with salt and pepper. 2.    Pan sear the pork in clarified butter until golden brown. 3.    Roast in oven at 350 degrees F until desired temperature.

Celebrity chef Michael Rork wasn't able to work his magic on Peerce's Plantation last year when he came on board as consulting executive chef. He'll have an easier job of it as executive chef of the Polo Grill (4 W. University Parkway), a job he took over last week. Tim Walker is running the kitchen day-to-day as his chef de cuisine. Rork made his name in Baltimore at the deluxe Hampton's in the Harbor Court Hotel. Seven years ago he left for a quieter life on the Eastern Shore, opening Michael Rork's Town Dock Restaurant in St. Michaels.

It's only been a year? A hit from the start, the Food Market opened on the eve of last year's Honfest. Co-owners Chad Gauss and Elan Kotz, the Food Market's executive chef and general manager, respectively, are celebrating their great first year with a birthday party at the Hampden restaurant on June 5. The party, a benefit for the Hampden Family Center , will include hors d'oeuvres and sweets provided by chefs and restaurateurs. The well-wishers providing food include Cyrus Keefer ( Fork & Wrench )

Just when the election is over and you felt a sincere lack of cutthroat competition in your life -- hooray for "Top Chef!" Welcome to Season 10. Let's get it started in hey-ya: Padma (in a fetching white ensemble) explains that 21 chefs will be competing in each of the judges' restaurants to narrow down the competition. Each of our judges -- Tom Colicchio, Hugh Acheson, Emeril Lagasse, and (new this season) Wolfgang Puck -- will have five or six contestants. Each will decide who moves on to the actual competition.

Saigon Remembered has reopened in the Cranbrook Shopping Center in Cockeysville. In an email to his faithful customers, owner and executive chef Trang Nguyen said that this is "third and most intimate incarnation of Baltimore's first and finest restaurant dedicated to serving authentic Vietnamese and Pan Asian cuisine. " Nguyen also told his customers that the new Saigon Remembered, unlike the first incarnations on Belair Road and across from the Senator movie theater on York Road, has plenty of free parking.