SOLD OUT “Cured” Culinary FLAVORS WITH
CHEF steve mchugh
Sunday NOVEMBER 10TH | 2PM-4PM
$99 MEMBERS, $120 NON-MEMBER
Cooking demonstration and tasting
The ROCC, AEP Foundation Culinary Arts Kitchen
Join James Beard Award Nominated Chef Steve McHugh from Cured, at the Pearl in San Antonio for an afternoon cooking demonstration and tasting of a delicious 3-course sampler topped off with his Famous Cajeta Eggnog recipe.
CLASS OVERVIEW
Meet and Greet with Charcuterie for the class
1st course: Romaine and pickle Salad with Shaved Parmesan (Acid chapter)
2nd course Snapper crusted with smoked nuts Over CousCous with preserved Lemon, Bacon and Greens (Smoke & Cure Chapters)
3rd course: A caramel Demonstration followed by house made eggnog
Chef Steve McHugh
Four-time James Beard Foundation Awards’ finalist for “Best Chef: Southwest,” and 2020 and 2022 finalist for “Best Chef: Texas,” Steve McHugh is from a large farm family – seven boys – in a small Wisconsin town, far from San Antonio, Texas, and farther still from the rich culinary culture of New Orleans, Louisiana, where his career as a fine dining chef took flight.
His interest in restaurants started back on the farm, when he followed an older brother at age fourteen to work in a nearby tavern, washing dishes. A jazz saxophone scholarship got him to college, but his passion was grounded in farming and cooking – so he found a way to study at the Culinary Institute of America. For his externship, Steven requested a placement in New Orleans, where he could enjoy the jazz scene as well as a culinary experience and upon graduating, he got himself right back down there, to where it all just clicked. Working with Creole chef Chris Brown, celebrity chef John Besh, and restaurateurs Dickie Brennan and Ralph Brennan of the legendary restaurant family, the soulfulness of his cuisine flourished as his taste and technique was influenced by the flavors and ingredients of Louisiana.
Hurricane Katrina was a turning point for McHugh, working 20-hour days, going through gallons of bleach to scrub out the restaurant, and serving breakfasts to hundreds of FEMA workers from a trailer. “A couple of fine-dining chefs, slinging scrambled eggs for 600 – we just continued and did not look back,” says McHugh, who was proud to be serving in the trenches. He worked his way around the Louisiana culinary scene, becoming chef de cuisine of Restaurant August, then La Provence, where his formative years on the family farm gave him an edge on establishing a full kitchen garden and farmyard.
In 2009, the thoughtful and energetic chef faced his greatest challenge by far: a diagnosis of cancer. He set out to beat his own opponent, non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma with two tumors, one the size of a grapefruit – with fierce determination, two operations, and a year of chemotherapy. Now in remission, his check-up visits are more often consumed with the subject of food, than cancer.
McHugh’s new lease on life propelled him forward toward a long-held dream: a restaurant of his own. Cured is located in Pearl, San Antonio’s groundbreaking culinary center that occupies the campus of the city’s late great Pearl Brewery. Cured refers to more than just the fact of recovered health. It is all about the house-cured meats and a menu of equally time-consuming culinary elements that have been lovingly handcrafted with just as much care and faith from the finest, freshest local ingredients in a gastro-pub style ambiance. Bitters for the cocktails. Vinegars for the pickling. Taking that philosophy of building dishes from the natural gifts of the local soil, McHugh honed-in on the bounty of Texas as the foundation for his menus.
“Beyond what was on the plate, I want to achieve the sense of warmth and support that I remember growing up on the farm, where our kitchen table was the gathering place for the whole community,” says McHugh. As a graduate who is committed to the betterment of his alma mater, the Culinary Institute of America, McHugh was invited to be on the Advisory Council of the CIA San Antonio Campus in April 2014. McHugh’s continued efforts also brought him to participate in the James Beard Chef Action Summit at Princeton University, where industry leaders convened to work towards positive policy changes that support people, communities, and the planet. McHugh was involved, weekly, in a month-long virtual James Beard Boot Camp supporting equity in the hospitality industry. McHugh was recognized for the second time in 2022 by the James Beard Foundation as a Smart Catch Leader for his use of the purest regional ingredients paired with organic methods, which influences others to focus their efforts in maintaining healthy, sustainable food sources now and for future generations.
In 2024, McHugh was named as the Executive Curating Chef for the Spurs Club, from Spurs Sports & Entertainment. The members-only social club and private dining is situated in the new Victory Capital Performance Center. McHugh leads the culinary direction of the club, designing the complete food menu and the beverage program for the restaurant and bars within the club.
McHugh released his first cookbook in Spring 2024 – CURED, Cooking with Ferments, Pickles, Preserves, & More. Transforming ingredients into extraordinary culinary dishes, this cookbook doesn't just show how to preserve foods - McHugh shares the cornerstone of his cooking - elevating produce that tastes of the sun and of the fertile fields from America’s lands. With over 150 curated recipes, the book is a definitive guide on cooking with preserved foods, from pickles and jams to charcuterie and mustards. Discover an arsenal of techniques for curing ingredients like meat and seafood, fermenting vibrant vegetables, transforming fruit into jam, and more — all with the goal of capturing seasonal ingredients at the peak of flavor to showcase the best of the past and present.
McHugh’s accolades span from one of the top 50 nominee for Bon Appetit’s “America’s Best New Restaurants 2014”, a runner up for Esquire’s “Best New Restaurants in America 2014”, and to Eater’s list of “38 Essential Texas Restaurants” in 2018. In 2022, International Fresh Produce Association named Chef Steve McHugh a winner of the 2022 Produce Excellence in Foodservice Award. McHugh has also appeared on the Food Network and the Cooking Channel, resulting in one of his favorite culinary memories - slow roasting a 230-pound hog in a large outdoor, cinder block pit with Chef Roger Mooking on Man, Fire Food. Sometimes everything is bigger in Texas!
From America’s Lands to Our Hands, six-time James Beard Foundation Award Finalist Chef Steve McHugh of Cured presents cuisine that is a celebration of our shared core values: smart, sustainable, and seasonal.
For more information:
Simone Rathlé | simoneink, llc | simone@simoneink.com
November 10, 2024 | 2PM-4PM
$99 members, $120 non-members