Foodievents

Unlimited BBQ and Champagne Brings Out the Carnal Chef at SOBE

Anthony Bourdain blesses Chris Lilly's pulled pork.
Anthony Bourdain blesses Chris Lilly’s pulled pork.

Bubble Q, SOBE’s Champagne-barbecue tasting party, may have been visible from the air last night. We made our way through the smoke-filled tent dodging mirror bars and fifteen-foot-high speaker stacks. We were happily waylaid by the endless chef’s tables and Champagne bars. Among the highlights:

Aaron Sanchez, the darling of the Spanish food press.

Del Posto’s Mark Ladner, a member of Team Mario on Iron Chef, took issue with Robert Sietsema’s beat-down in the Voice this week. “We work for three days straight for every contest,” he tells us. “And it really is an hour. That’s it. We’ve done it over twenty times, and we don’t know the ingredient. But we know how the producers think, what works, and we make our plans accordingly. The fact that I, Anne Burrell, and Mario have done it together so much makes us very hard to beat.”

• A cluster of food luminaries — including Tony Bourdain, Bobby Flay, and Schott’s Food and Drink Miscellany author Ben Schott — surrounding Chris Lilly’s pulled pork. Look for Lilly, from Big Bob Gibson’s barbecue in Alabama, to command similar crowds at the Big Apple Block Party.

• Zak Pelaccio departed from the BBQ theme of the evening to do an immensely popular burger made of brisket and chuck. Late in the night, he was writhing to “You Shook Me All Night Long” atop a table.

Unlimited BBQ and Champagne Brings Out the Carnal Chef at SOBE