Boulder’s Celebrity Chef Has a Lot on His Plate
BY JOHN LEHNDORFF

Hosea Rosenberg is not your typical reality television star.

With his biblical name, Zen/beatnik bald head and goatee and a mega-geek degree in engineering physics, he just doesn’t seem like Survivor/American Idol material. And while he says “I love to win,” he exudes that Colorado no-worries vibe that so irritates flatlanders.

It was a surprise when Rosenberg went on Top Chef, and positively shocking when he won the fifth season of the Bravo network’s popular kitchen competition last February. And nobody could have predicted the ongoing fallout from his famous smooch with a fellow contestant.

A year ago he was a well-regarded executive chef working hard at Jax Fish House. Now he’s “Hosea,” famous (or infamous) enough among America’s foodies to be known by just his first name.

“It’s surreal, totally surreal,” the 35-year-old chef said with a broad smile, sitting at a table in his busy Boulder restaurant. A few months after his victory Rosenberg’s life had become a warp-speed wonder.

“Right after I won I said ‘yes’ to everybody and everything, so I’ve got a lot on my plate right now,” he said.

After a public celebration on the body-jammed rooftop of Boulder’s West End Tavern, where he watched the finale, the whirlwind began. “The next morning I flew to New York and did a bunch of radio interviews, Live with Regis and Kelly, Martha Stewart, and talked to People,” he said.

Since then, Rosenberg has showcased Colorado beef, goat cheese, and mushrooms in Los Angeles and cooked at a New Orleans food festival as well as the Kentucky Derby. In June he had a special Top Chef gig at the Aspen Food &Wine Classic. There have been lots of other demos along the way. As if to make the point, his cell phone starts beeping on cue about another invitation.

Wending his way through the multi-tasking maze has jacked up the performance pressure beyond anything he felt during the filming. “I’ve been trying hard to negotiate between being at Jax and being a public figure, and make everybody happy,” he said.

“When people eat at Jax now, they expect to see me and they get disappointed when I’m not here,” Rosenberg said. The seafood eatery was already very busy before Top Chef. “Now, it’s crazy busy.”

While Rosenberg is unapologetically proud of his victory, he keeps it in perspective. “It doesn’t mean I’m anywhere near the best chef in the country or even in Colorado,” he said. “The three of us left at the end [of Top Chef] were judged on one final meal. That day I cooked the best.”

“It’s a game. It’s like the playoffs, where it doesn’t matter what you’ve done in previous games.When the Giants beat the Patriots nobody complained New England should have gotten credit because they had been unbeaten,” he said.

Rosenberg overcame a cast of rivals including his friend Melissa Harrison, a chef at the Happy Noodle House, and the last two competitors: the cranky Stefan Richter and the chef he expected would win, Carla Hall.

“The worst part of doing the show was the stress of living in that house together,” he said.

“We had no contact with the outside world.We didn’t have a TV or radio and we spent a lot of time together hanging out. I made about three calls the whole time, and they listened in on the calls.” Rosenberg and the other chefs signed contracts obliging them to pay $1 million for each bit of information they let out.

The actual cooking was a small part of that time, he said. “You wait and wait and wait and they say: ‘Grab your knives’ and you don’t know where you’re going or what you’re cooking. It’s a pressure cooker in a foreign environment. There are cameras everywhere and the clock is ticking.”

One low moment was the episode when he had trouble skinning an eel. Ask Rosenberg about his most embarrassing Top Chef moment and he just sighs. “It was getting on that couch with Leah.”

In one of those only-on-reality-TV moments endlessly yapped-about in the blogosphere, Rosenberg was seen kissing fellow competitor Leah Cohen. At the time both were involved with other people. “In the house I got to know Leah and now the whole world knows,” he said. His relationship with his Boulder girlfriend didn’t survive.

Rosenberg is the first to admit he wasn’t born to be a chef. To make money while earning his degree at the University of Colorado, he worked in local restaurants. After graduation he realized his true calling was in the kitchen.

The turning point in Rosenberg’s life came when he hired on as sous chef at the Zolo Grill before moving on to Jax. He’s now worked for five years for Dave Query, one of the more successful local restaurateurs. Besides Jax in Boulder and Denver, Query’s Big Red F group includes Zolo, Centro, Happy Noodle House, and theWest End Tavern in Boulder, and Lola in Denver.

“Dave’s always understood what makes a restaurant is the people who work there,” Rosenberg said. “‘Will they drink the Kool-Aid,’ is the way he puts it. Do they believe in the place?”

Special too has been the aftermath of winning Top Chef. Rosenberg took home $100,000 and was featured in Food &Wine. He got to cook in the kitchen at Le Bernadin, one of America’s top eateries. “I got to meet so many great chefs like Erik Ripert and Grant Achatz. I got to feed Lidia Bastianich and Marcus Samuelsson.When else would I have had that opportunity?”

In the short term, Rosenberg is enjoying the ride. He’ll continue running Jax and doing events. He’s marketing organic spreads and dips for Colorado-based Tellory Inc. He may develop some food products under his own name. And someday, there will be a cookbook.

Almost every day now someone asks Rosenberg when he’s moving to New York or Los Angeles, presuming he wouldn’t want to “waste” his newly minted celebrity in a culinary backwater like Colorado.

The answer lies in the fact that the Taos-raised Rosenberg defines himself as aWesterner. He’s got that streak of high-altitude independence. “Look, my heart’s here. My parents and my friends live here. I feel connected to this place. In time I want to do my own restaurant with Dave Query. I just bought a house—I used some of the money from the show. I’m staying in Boulder.”

John Lehndorff is the former dining critic of the Rocky Mountain News and author of Denver Dines: A Restaurant Guide and More (Johnson Books). Contact him at johnlehndorff.com.

Hanging with Hosea
• See a video of Hosea Rosenberg the night he won Top Chef at rockymountainnews.com/news/2009/feb/25/boulder-cheffinds-recipe-for-success
• Recipes for Rosenberg’s winning Top Chef dishes can be found at http://recipes.mt.bravotv.com