ICASI’s Top Chefs 2024 will raise funds for scholarships

Cleveland’s Top Chefs 2024, an annual event to fund culinary scholarships for future chefs, takes over the teaching kitchens and other spaces at the International Institute of Culinary Arts and Sciences in Chester Township from 4 to 7 p.m. on Aug. 25.

Some of the area’s most acclaimed chefs will offer samples of what they do best at food stalls set up in the school’s professional kitchens. The chefs, many of whom employ ICASI graduates, donate their time, skills and the ingredients used to prepare the dishes they serve.

The event allows chefs to meet potential diners in person, introduce students to potential employers in the culinary community, and provide everyone with good things to eat while raising money for scholarships. Word of their energy spreading through professional kitchens inspired new participants this year.

“We had chefs calling us and asking us to include them this year,” said Loretta Paganini, who founded ICASI in 2002 to train professional chefs, including those in the art of pastry making.

Since then, it has been regularly named one of the best culinary schools in the country with moderately priced tuition. The school offers certificate and diploma programs that range in length from six months to two years.

Last year’s event raised enough to award 15 to 20 scholarships, said Marilyn Amedia, chairwoman of this year’s Top Chefs.

“Many of our students are transitioning from other career paths while supporting their families, so we know that every scholarship makes a difference,” she said. “We raised about $70,000 and we hope to do even better this year.”

Flavors will include a pink pineapple gazpacho, topped with blackberry caviar from Richie Cunningham, longtime chef of Sara’s Place in Gates Mills.

“We’ve been able to get a lot of our ingredients from Eddy’s Fruit Farm in (Chester Township),” said Cunningham, who began his culinary career as a teenager, working in the kitchen of a highway truck stop. “I received my culinary training from Loretta, who introduced me to Dave and Mary Gromelski.”

The Gromelskis hired him to work in catering at what was then known as The Andrews School in Willoughby, and when they opened Sara’s 18 years ago in Gates Mills, he came on as their chef.

It currently employs a handful of ICASI graduates.

Internationally renowned chefs, including Michelin-starred chef Dante Boccuzzi, will be among those bringing their creations to the Top Chefs charity event.

Boccuzzi often employs ICASI students who complete the required externships to graduate and then hires them into the kitchens of his restaurants, which include Dukes n’ Boots in Willoughby, as well as Cleveland and Akron area favorites Dante, Ginko Restaurant, DBA, Dante Next Door, Coda, Northside Speakeasy, Dante’s Inferno Progressive Field, Inferno and Giappone.

“My pastry chef is an ICASI graduate who has been with me for 12 years,” Boccuzzi said.

For the benefit of ICASI, he will serve sautéed scallops with balsamic-glazed strawberries, a dish offered at some of his restaurants.

“I came up with this when I was a chef at the Mandarin Oriental in San Francisco,” he said. “It will be in my new cookbook, which I hope will be ready this fall.”

Boccuzzi, a native of Northeast Ohio, received a Michelin star while serving as executive chef at Charlie Palmer’s Aureole in New York City from 2002 to 2007. He also cooked at London’s famed L’Escargot; Le Muscadin in Mougin, France; L’Albereta in Erbusco, Italy; and Aquamarina in Sardinia, Italy.

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Brad Race, a New York City native, worked as a bond trader on Wall Street after earning his degree in economics and finance. He left that world to become a chef. He cooked at high-end restaurants in New York, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles, learning from James Beard Foundation Award-winning chefs. He is now the owner and creative chef of The Last Page Restaurant at Pinecrest in Orange Village.

He will bring a tartine of candied tuna salad from the restaurant’s menu to the Top Chefs charity event.

“It shows what you can do with the belly of a whole tuna that sushi chefs often just cut into pieces,” said Race, who lives in Chagrin Falls.

After poaching fresh tuna over low heat covered in olive oil, the resulting tuna salad, accented with Middle Eastern spices, has proven to be a delicious concoction that never fails to delight tasters, he said.

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Matt Mytro, co-owner of Flour in Moreland Hills with Paul Minnillo, hired Alex Murza, a Ukrainian immigrant who received an ICASI scholarship last year. Murza is now in his second year of the school’s college-level diploma program, which requires students to work 200 hours in the food industry before they are awarded a degree.

“He was doing very well here, but the commute was an hour long, so he had to look for work closer to home,” Mytro said.

Paganini said Murza, who used to work at a Taco Bell, now has the skills for a fine-dining establishment like Flour.

In line with efforts to let customers know that Flour serves more than just pasta and pizza, Mytro will be offering meatballs poached in whipped ricotta at the ICASI charity event.

“We are rebranding our catering business and now offer dry pasta alongside fresh pasta to markets like Heinen, which sell our pastas,” he said.

Adam DiLauro, one of ICASI’s first graduates, is among the chefs now running their own businesses. DiLauro, who learned the value of fresh, locally sourced ingredients as a student, has applied that knowledge to the food he prepares at Pizzeria DiLauro and RetroBurger, the Bainbridge Township restaurants he owns with his wife, Tiffany, and brother, Cody.

“The Bonner Farms beef we use comes from cows raised, fed and slaughtered within 10 minutes of here, and it’s delivered to us twice a week,” he said. “The Great Lakes cheese we use is also made just a few minutes away.”

Sam Lesniak, chef of the French-inspired restaurant Cru Uncorked in Moreland Hills, is sure to win over tasters with the duck crousillant served with pickled cherries, Albufera sauce and a cherry with foie gras that he will bring to the ICASI benefit. The restaurant is considered by many to be one of the best in Northeast Ohio.

Kevin Keough, a hobby chef who works in advertising sales, had such a good reaction to the jarred desserts he created that he opened Kevin Is Always Mixing, a dessert bakery in Chardon.

She has added macarons, kolache, rugelach, cassata cake and fresh pastries to her display cases, but the 80 flavors of fresh ingredients packaged in 8- and 16-ounce Mason jars are the heart and soul of her operation. She provides desserts to several companies and will bring black raspberry cheesecake and key lime desserts in 3-ounce jars to the ICASI fundraiser.

Other chefs appearing at the Top Chefs fundraiser include Vinnie Cimino of Cordelia; Eric Wells of Skye LaRae’s Culinary Services; Mia Humphrey of Culinary by Design; Kristen Barnes of Sweet Bean Candies; and chef Brad Gambrell.

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The evening will also include beer and wine, a bourbon tasting bar, live music and complimentary valet parking. Tickets will also be sold for a chance to win a harvest tour of Italy’s wine regions valued at $10,000; a private cooking class dinner for 12, prepared at the school by Paganini; and a dinner for 12 prepared at the winner’s home by ICASI Education Director Tim McCoy.

Tickets for Top Chefs 2024 are $150 per person, of which $90 is tax-deductible. Tickets are limited and last year sold out before the event. Get tickets at icasischolarshipfund.org/fundraising-events or by calling 440-729-1110.