A contestant from season 3 of Top Chef who went on to become a private chef in the Bay Area has announced the opening of her first restaurant in San Francisco's Theater District.
Casey Thompson was a finalist and fan favorite on Bravo's Top Chef program who returned to her native state of Texas after the season ended. Six years ago she made the move to the Bay Area to work as a personal chef and at wineries, but has since leveraged her cooking skills to open Aveline at the Warwick Hotel. According to an interview with Haute Living, the former private cook was approached by the hotel to open a restaurant that is "fresh and new."
The new restaurant will incorporate Thompson's Texan upbringing – big, bold flavors and spice – with some of the more common cuisines found throughout the Bay Area. She calls this "new Californian" dining, and is hoping that guests of the hotel and outside visitors will enjoy it as well.
'I'm not from here, but I've lived out here for six years. I'd fallen in love with the area and gotten to know my Bay Area," Thompson told the source. "But I noticed a trend, where you were getting similar things at many restaurants. So I wanted to combine my Texas upbringing, which was big, bold flavors – not being afraid to put spice on the menu – but wanting it to be California beautiful. I wanted people to have that California experience that we're calling "new Californian," because it's all the things that we've had for years, but in a different way."
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