Colicchio a top draw at A.C. food fest

ATLANTIC CITY - The ingredients are late, so Tom Colicchio is vamping, standing at a staged kitchen in the music hall at the House of Blues, talking vinaigrettes.

In the audience, people are thinking about his shiny bald head, his liquid-blue eyes, his infectious laugh, and his truffle vinaigrettes.

They are wondering if they can get their picture taken with Colicchio, the star from Bravo's Top Chef. They are smitten, for sure, but they're likely wondering too whether these small containers of Fage yogurt (courtesy of the sponsor) will be the only food available for tasting at this cooking demonstration, part of the new and improved Atlantic City Food and Wine Festival held last weekend. (Alas, it was. No quail for you!)

"I met Gordon Ramsay a few times," Colicchio is telling the audience, speaking of his fellow chef TV star, the crazed bad boy of Hell's Kitchen. "He's a good guy."

Yeah, sure he is.

It is the morning after the festival's opening event, the Jim Beam Gourmet Pizza Bash, at which Colicchio, founder of Craft restaurant in New York City, was mobbed by a crowd of 700 as he weighed competing pizza crusts.

It is also the first of four events at which Colicchio (cu-LICK-e-o) will appear. Each event will feature less and less schmooze time with adoring fans and more and more interference from a no-nonsense casino security entourage. (Note to security patrol: This guy's a chef, not POTUS.)

"What has happened to the past Top Chefs? What has become of us?" he says, repeating a question from the crowd and erupting in that cute laughter. "They go to the Top Chef graveyard in the sky."

But not this chef, the TV show's top judge. Fans work themselves into a frenzy everywhere he goes.

Aside from that earlier vinaigrette demonstration sans samples, folks are eating and drinking themselves silly during this four-day festival, as much as the ubiquitous lines will allow.

Cooked up and sponsored by Harrah's and TD Bank to benefit the Susan G. Komen for the Cure breast-cancer foundation, the festival (much larger than last year's) was anchored by celebrity chefs.

In addition to Colicchio, Ted Allen, Ingrid Hoffmann, Guy Fieri, Duff Goldman, and über-celeb-chef Emeril Lagasse passed through town, demonstrating, hosting, teaching, posing, basking, and rubbing elbows. They even cooked.