“Let me put it this way, I wasn’t invited to Kohler last year.”
It’s with a healthy dose of self-deprecation that Hosea Rosenberg can joke about his meteoric rise from obscurity to insta-celebrity in a little less than a year.
Since being named the Season 5 winner of Bravo’s “Top Chef,” Rosenberg has discovered that it’s nicer to be in the rarified air of previous Kohler Food and Wine Experience invitees like Tom Colicchio, Jacques Pepin and Hubert Keller than on the reality TV chopping block.
In fact, Rosenberg has been traveling to special celebrity-laden events so much this year, his home restaurant, Jax Fish House in Boulder, Colo., jokingly tracks his whereabouts on a blog called www.whereishosea.com.
“Being instantly recognizable has helped my career so much. It’s opened so many doors,” said Rosenberg, who will be appearing at Kohler’s four-day food and wine festival next week.
“To get that exposure from ‘Top Chef,’ obviously, there’s nothing like it. Plus, it brought so much new business to our restaurant that it helped us in what’s been a really terrible year for a lot of people.”
If Rosenberg hadn’t already been sporting a bald dome, this year’s life-altering adventure probably would have led to some manic hair-pulling moments. After a stressful bit of hanky-panky with fellow contestant Leah Cohen, Rosenberg kept his cool and captured the “Top Chef” crown in February during a three-way battle with Stefan Richter and Carla Hall.
In the immediate aftermath of his victory, Rosenberg realized that his quiet Colorado kitchen life would never be the same.
“The first few weeks after I won, I could barely work in the kitchen,” Rosenberg said. “It was a joke to everyone, among all the cooks, because we had to hire an extra guy on since I was spending at least 40, 50 percent of my evening out in the dining room. Talking to customers, signing autographs, taking pictures … some people would call their parents so I could talk to them. I’m much more comfortable with it now, but at first, I couldn’t believe people cared that much.”
Much of the attention can be attributed to “Top Chef’s” enduring popularity, but in general, foodie culture has given rise to a previously unseen level of starpower for chefs-as-entertainers. The Kohler event, now in its ninth year, is a perfect example of how pairing national names with local culinary standouts can build a successful infrastructure in an unlikely Wisconsin location.
“Events like this are great because it gives me a chance to travel all over the country and meet chefs from different regions,” Rosenberg said. “Most of them I’ve read about or heard about but never actually met. So the chance to cook with them is a real treat.”
Rosenberg will be presenting a Thursday cooking demonstration on one of his specialties, sustainable seafood, as well as a sold-out beer luncheon with Belgian brewery Stella Artois on Saturday. Inevitably, “Top Chef” discussion dominates, though most fans just want to say they’ve tasted his food.
“It’s been crazy. People were scheduling summer vacations to come to the restaurant,” Rosenberg said. “Hopefully, I met their expectations when they came out, but that really puts a lot of pressure on you when someone brings their whole family from Florida to eat at your place.”
Rosenberg jokes that before he went on the show, he was “a really big deal on the 900 block of Pearl Street” – where Jax Fish House is located. And while the metamorphosis from downtown Boulder fixture to nationally recognized chef wasn’t his ultimate plan, he’s trying to keep a level head while enjoying his time as reigning “Top Chef” champ.
“I graduated from college with an engineering degree,” Rosenberg said. “I became a chef because I really loved it, not because I thought I’d ever make a lot of money. So the fact that people recognize chefs now and want to be chefs because of so many food programs, it’s just mind-blowing.”
