Chefs Michael Gallina and Aaron Martinez to Collaborate with Oak & Reel in Detroit
On the heels of their James Beard Foundation nomination, Chefs Michael Gallina and Aaron Martinez will be heading to Detroit on February 23 and 24 to collaborate with award-winning Chef Jared Gadbaw and his team at Oak & Reel restaurant.
Michael and Jared, friends and former roommates in NY, from the days when Michael was working at Blue Hill and Jared captained the two Michelin Star restaurant Marea in New York City. Now they will come together, along with Aaron, to host The Culinary Collective Chefs Series, benefiting Forgotten Harvest – a non-profit that works to fight hunger and food insecurity in the Detroit community.
Gallina stated, "Aaron and I are really excited to head to Detroit and do a dinner with my longtime friend Chef Jared Gadbaw and the team at Oak and Reel. It's more of a takeover-style event so we created the entire menu and drew inspiration from Vicia to share a taste of our philosophy and cuisine with the community in Detroit. Jared and I worked together back in New York at Eleven Madison Park and were roommates during some formative years in our careers so it will be really exciting to get together again now that we are both established chefs and restaurant owners. This is the first time Aaron and I have traveled to Detroit, so we are looking forward to exploring the city and seeing another Midwest perspective. It has been a goal of ours to collaborate with other chefs and travel more across the country; now that we are able to get back out there, we look forward to getting more events like this on the books and also opening our doors at Vicia to other talented chefs."