Will Columbus take the ‘Top Chef’ crown?
Avishar Barua, the Columbus-born chef who earned national attention for his innovative cuisine at Service Bar, is taking his talent to TV to compete on the new season of Bravo’s “Top Chef” beginning April 1.
Barua will be among 15 chefs from around the country competing for the title of “Top Chef”—and the $250,000 prize—in a series of culinary challenges in Portland, Oregon. The Emmy-winning cable series is hosted by Padma Lakshmi. Head judge Tom Colicchio said the new contestants “could be one of the best collections of chefs we’ve had on the show in 18 seasons.”
The son of Bangladeshi immigrants, Barua is an Ohio State University graduate who attended culinary school and trained in New York City restaurant kitchens before returning to Columbus. He has been the executive chef at Service Bar since the restaurant opened in 2017 in the Middle West Spirits distillery in the Short North.
Service Bar has chosen to keep its dining room closed while offering carryout food since pandemic restrictions began last year.
Spencer Saylor
The Wizard’s Journey
Spencer Saylor, better known around town as the Wizard of Za, has been a busy man since we interviewed him for the Fall 2020 issue of Edible Columbus. At the time he was swamped with orders taken through Instagram for his Sicilian-style pizza, fulfilling them in small batches made in his home kitchen.
Today he has a pizza kitchen in the Clintonville location of FUSIAN, the fast-casual sushi chain, and is taking advance pizza orders on a new website, thewizardofza.com. Saylor said he’s grateful that the partnership with FUSIAN has made it possible for him to accomplish his goal “to connect with the Columbus community through my cuisine every day, along with creating jobs in an industry where so many have been lost recently.”
You can see his menu and order pizza at the website.
Big Biscuit Energy
Boxwood Biscuit Co. is a new venture being launched by people we profiled in different roles in the Spring 2020 issue of Edible Columbus. That magazine featured an article on Law Bird, the Brewery District cocktail bar opened by award-winning bartender Annie Williams Pierce and her husband, Luke Pierce. A separate article focused on the career of chef Tyler Minnis and the changes he brought to The Market Italian Village.
Boxwood began offering made-from-scratch biscuits and breakfast sandwiches as a weekend pop-up business at Law Bird while bars were under pandemic restrictions. Its popularity prompted the Pierces and Minnis to start a crowdfunding campaign to open Boxwood as a separate shop. They found a location at 19 W. Russell St. in the Short North, a property already designed as a restaurant because it formerly housed the Belgian Iron Wafel Co., which closed in 2019.
The menu at the new location will expand to offer Minnis’s Korean-style fried chicken in addition to biscuits, gravy and breakfast items. The trio plans a spring opening.
Now open: North Market Bridge Park
North Market Changes
The North Market, where all the merchants are locally owned small businesses, posted a video on its website and its YouTube channel with various vendors offering thank-you messages to the customers who have kept them going for the past year. Sales were down and a few vendors closed up shop, but the market continued to adapt to circumstances and remains open daily except Mondays.
The Downtown market has partnered with Mercato to provide grocery delivery service for customers staying close to home, and it has launched a happy hour from 3 to 6pm each Thursday with many of the 30-plus merchants offering deals on food and drinks.
Market officials also moved ahead with their pre-pandemic plan to open a satellite operation in Dublin. North Market Bridge Park had a limited opening in November, and it has added tenants and hours as some construction continues. The 10 merchants who have opened so far also offer Thursday happy hour specials. The Dublin market remains closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.
