"If the Metropolitan Building was somehow beamed up to outer space on Tuesday, October 20th," said a guest at the annual Bid Against Hunger event at the Metropolitan Pavilion, "every celebrity chef on the planet would be gone!"
If you are a fan of the TV Food Network and shows like Top Chef, the place to be (and to ogle culinary masters in the flesh) was the City Harvest benefit called Bid Against Hunger. Now you’ve probably been to fundraisers against hunger before, but this event had more star power (at least, culinary star power) than the Academy Awards. Everywhere you looked were famous faces like Chefs Eric Ripert, Marc Murphy, Anita Lo, Jean-George Vongerichten, Alex Guarnaschelli, and New York TV personality Kelly Choi.
Overall, this year’s Bid Against Hunger raised over $700,000, and provided non-stop fun edible and visual entertainment. As one walked through the door, the aroma from the cuisine was amazing. And the presentation of cuisine, though on disposable plates, was like that of a five-star restaurant. Distracting guests from the incredible culinary presentations was the upbeat live auction, with big wins such as dinner for twelve at LandMark (an upbeat and popular restaurant in New York’s Time Warner Center) and exotic tropical getaways. The night's highest bid lot went for $55,000 and included a wine tasting at Le Bernardin with its sommelier Aldo Sohm, dinner for eight at Le Bernardin, and a cooking class with Eric Ripert. Other top auction items included tickets to Vanity Fair's Oscar party, which went for $36,000, and a private dinner in your home with John Stage (Dinosaur BBQ) and Tom Valenti (Ouest, Cesca, West Branch), which was sold for $22,000.
Tickets started at only $175 — which was an incredible deal considering that dinner for two in a top restaurant these days, including cocktails and wine and tip, easily approaches $500. The Bid Against Hunger was an amazingly and unexpectedly glamorous evening that was a win-win for all concerned.
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