Delaware North Companies Chefs from Across United States Preparing Art Museum’s Exclusive Fund-Raising Dinner

BUFFALO, N.Y. (Nov. 13, 2007) – Ten Delaware North Companies chefs from across the United States are set to prepare an elegant Italian-themed gala dinner for 160 guests on Nov. 17 when the Albright-Knox Art Gallery honors contemporary art collector Giuseppe Panza di Biumo.

 

The sold-out gala at the Albright-Knox will also celebrate the opening of an exclusive U.S. exhibition of works from Panza’s collection. The Albright-Knox is recognized as a leading international center of modern and contemporary art, and Panza, an Italian industrialist, has been one of the world’s leading patrons and collectors of contemporary art for more than 50 years.

 

The Panza Collection: An Experience of Color and Light includes about 70 works – all focused on color and light – by 16 acclaimed American artists represented in the Panza collection, including Bruce Nauman and David Simpson. Featured in the November edition of Vogue magazine, the exhibition will be on view through Feb. 24, 2008.

 

Proceeds from the black-tie gala, themed Light Up the Night, will benefit the Albright-Knox. The donation is $1,000 per person. Several members of the Panza family and several artists featured in the exhibition will join Albright-Knox patrons at the gala.

 

Light Up the Night is being co-chaired by Alison Keane, an Albright-Knox board member; and Alice Jacobs, whose husband, Jeremy M. Jacobs Jr., is executive vice president of Buffalo-based Delaware North. His father, Jeremy M. Jacobs Sr., is chairman and CEO of Delaware North and also owner of the Boston Bruins of the National Hockey League.

 

 

Delaware North is serving as a key sponsor by providing its culinary resources and expertise to plan and cater the Panza gala. The company is one of the world’s leading hospitality and food service providers and one of the largest privately held companies in the United States.

 

Delaware North counts The Ahwahnee – a National Historic Landmark hotel at Yosemite National Park – and the new Wembley Stadium in London among the many venues at which it provides fine dining. The company is also set to begin jointly operating the Grand Ballroom of the iconic Plaza hotel in New York City.

 

Leading the Delaware North culinary team for the Panza gala is Certified Master Chef Roland Henin, corporate executive chef and chief culinary ambassador of global hospitality. Chef Henin is an internationally recognized culinary expert and one of only 60 certified master chefs in the country. He achieved that highest of American Culinary Federation honors in 1983. A native of Lyon, France, who joined Delaware North in 1998, Chef Henin is a former mentor to such noted chefs as Emeril Lagasse and Thomas Keller.

 

He will be assisted by Delaware North Companies Sportservice Corporate Chef Rolf Baumann, a certified executive chef who has received more than a dozen medals in American Culinary Federation national competitions.

 

Also assisting are Chef Kader Temkkit, a French master pastry chef from The Balsams Grand Resort Hotel in New Hampshire; certified executive chefs Tab Daulton of Buffalo’s HSBC Arena, Mark Angeles of Soldier Field in Chicago, and Kevin Doherty of TD Banknorth Garden in Boston; Executive Chef Larry Johnson from The Balsams; Certified Chef Elizabeth Brown from The Ahwahnee; Chef Scott Green from Fairgrounds Raceway and Gaming in Buffalo; and Sous Chef Rick Ortiz from Soldier Field.

 

Chef Henin’s team of chefs will begin preparing the food for the gala this Friday (Nov. 16) at the Delaware North-operated kitchens of  both HSBC Arena and Ralph Wilson Stadium in Buffalo. Final preparation and setup will begin at the Albright Knox on Saturday afternoon.

 

 

The event will feature three stages – a welcoming champagne reception with unique cocktails and hors d’ oeuvres, a formal three-course dinner, and the “arrivederci,” with cordials, coffee, and desserts – all planned, orchestrated and prepared by the Delaware North culinary team.

 

“We are planning an elegant dinner featuring exquisite foods prepared with an Italian flavor but with the freshest of American ingredients,” said Chef Henin, who developed the menu.

 

The appetizers will include cioppino, an Italian fish chowder, prepared using lobster foam and baccalá frito and served in a shooter; basmati and crab cakes; and platters of various small bites, including prawns oreganata and mussels con finnochio insalata.

 

The sit-down dinner will feature pan-roasted Wisconsin free-range veal chop, porcini and fall mushrooms cacciatore, broccolini, seasonal squash, and risotto galette. Artisan breads and farm house cheeses and a delicate fall greens salad will complement the sit-down courses. For dessert, guests can select from such delights as “trio di sorbetti,” gelato, zabaglione over poached fruits, cannoli a la siciliana, ricotta crema torta, and panna cotta raspberry.

 

 

The gala will include intimate tours of the exhibition in the museum’s signature 1905 Greek Revival building. The elegant dinner will follow in the museum’s modernist wing, added in 1962 through donations by important benefactor and namesake the late Seymour H. Knox Jr.

 

“There could not be a more perfect setting to honor Giuseppe Panza because of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery’s long tradition of collecting and exhibiting contemporary art,” said Albright-Knox Director Louis Grachos. “It is an incredible honor to have the Panzas’ outstanding collection on view in our museum.”

 

Described by some as a “modernist Medici,” Panza and his wife, Giovanna, began building their world-renowned collection of contemporary art in 1956 with works by such artists as Franz Kline and Robert Rauschenberg. Over the years, significant works from the Panza collection have been acquired by the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art and the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Works from the Panza collection are also on view in the 18th century villa in Varese, Italy, near Milan, that the couple donated to the Italian National Trust.

 

Few other museums in the world have had the opportunity to feature works from the Panzas’ remaining collection of some 2,500 works in an exhibition. The similarities between the Panza collection and the highly regarded contemporary collection of the Albright-Knox – especially mid-20th century works – were the impetus for the collaborative exhibition, Grachos said.

 

Grachos and Senior Curator Douglas Dreishpoon – in consultation with Giuseppe Panza – organized and will install the exhibition. It includes paintings, sculptures, and installations.

 

The Panza Collection: An Experience of Color and Light is made possible, in part, through the generous support of Sotheby’s, Judge and Mrs. John T. Elfvin, and an anonymous donor. Presenting sponsor for the gala is Culligan Auto Place Porsche.
Robert Mondavi Winery is providing a selection of fine wines.