John Howie Steak’s Triple By-Pass Burger Offends Gabriel Claycamp
And he’s not afraid to UPCAP about it.
Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Oct 11, 2010 at 09:23AM
3 Comments
When last we saw Gabriel Claycamp, he was leaving the Swinery Part II in characteristically dramatic fashion.
Since then the controversial chef has opened Alchemy in the Kitchen, a cooking school slash consulting business slash “non restaurant.”
And on the website for this new business, he has a blog. And on this blog, well, he has decided to call out Chef John Howie, he of Steak and Seastar fame, as a “hack.”
Why go after Howie? Claycamp got offended after reading about a recent PR campaign in which Howie invited diners to come up with a new name for the burger his restaurant was calling the “Triple By-Pass.” As it turns out, that name had already been trademarked by the Heart Attack Grill in Arizona. Heart Attack got litigious; Steak came up with a naming campaign.
I got a press release about it on October 5. According to it, the burger is the creation of Mark Hipkiss, executive chef at Steak. From the release (upcaps preserved): “Hipkiss, in perhaps a supreme moment of culinary insanity, sandwiched a 12-ounce prime chuck burger, tempura fried Kurobuta bacon and ONION RINGS between two grilled cheese sandwiches oozing with Tillamook cheddar and Swiss cheese. This comes, of course, accompanied by a generous portion of crispy fries.”
The person who comes up with the extreme burger’s new name receives, in return, “a party of six,” which includes six of the burgers plus six beers. (Want to enter? See contest details here.)
Claycamp—who himself served six-ounce burgers topped with bacon at the Swinery, not to mention bacon hotdogs—calls the sandwich “the single most disgusting thing I have seen outside of a 7-11 or a KFC.” He does some expressive upcapping himself in the post; read it here.
Over the top or awesomely delicious? What do you think of the yet-to-be-renamed burger?
Tags: Hamburgers, Chef Drama, Gabriel Claycamp, Extreme Eating,
““Hipkiss, in perhaps a supreme moment of culinary insanity, sandwiched a 12-ounce prime chuck burger, tempura fried Kurobuta bacon and ONION RINGS between two grilled cheese sandwiches oozing with Tillamook cheddar and Swiss cheese….”
so, that’s not really hipkiss’s genius. it’s a version of the fatty melt that’s been around since 2008. all steak’s chef did was add bacon and onion rings.
http://aht.seriouseats.com/archives/2008/10/the-hamburger-fatty-melt-a-burger-with-two-grilled-cheese-sandwiches-as-its-bun.html
as for claycamp’s “rant”, as the pot he shouldn’t be calling the kettle black. here’s one of the offerings from the swinery on main’s menu:
The Boss Hog
Bacon Burger | Bacon | Griddled Bacon Dog | Caramelized Red Onion | Cheddar
can he get any more fatty bacon on that thing? responsibility to the diner, huh! talk about a hypocrite! but i guess he has to keep his name in the culinary news cycle somehow; because he can’t seem to keep a consistent business presence as a chef.
Seriously, what a jag.
Needs to be deep fried … with a pig’s head on top.