Dine & Design
An artful dinner party following the 2015 Design Bloggers Conference pays homage to creative masters with avant-garde culinary creations and daring design.
Don’t play with your food was just one of the rules broken at a special dinner held at the Atlanta home of creative powerhouses Mark and Cinda Boomershine following the 2015 Design Bloggers Conference (DBC). Play, in fact, was precisely what former Woodfire Grill chef Tyler Williams and design-media authority Adam Japko had in mind as they planned the evening’s artfully designed dinner.
Founded by Japko six years ago, DBC is held each spring and celebrates the intersection of interior design and new media. No stranger to cultivating inspiration—from magazines to digital platforms, including his own wine blog, WineZag—Japko seized on the opportunity to creatively interpret his tech-minded thought process into a night that was equal parts far-reaching and fun.
The venue: Cinda and Mark Boomershine’s swoon-worthy Buckhead abode. Creative forces in their own right—Mark is a high-voltage pop artist, and Cinda, the brains behind the Cinda B line of handbags and travel accessories—the pair graciously opened their bold and bright home to more than 35 design-industry VIPs for what proved to be an unforgettable evening.
Tyler Williams, an innovative, Atlanta-based chef who has made culinary waves with his work at Abattoir and Woodfire Grill, says he was thrilled when Japko, a longtime customer, approached him about headlining this particular dinner.
“Tyler’s massive creativity has an intellectual foundation that always makes things completely appropriate and on point,” says Japko. “When we visited with the Boomershines at their home, I watched the wheels turning in his head. Knowing we would be hosting interior-design professionals, and that Mark is an artist of profound talent, could have been a daunting task, but Tyler completely pulled it together, including my thoughts on wine pairings from my cellar.”
And, while it is Williams’s habit to present each plate with an artist’s eye, these dishes were especially ornate. Inspired by artists like Mondrian, Rothko, Pollock and Warhol, Williams, along with artist Steven Fant, set out to design each course as an homage to modern art icons.
Carefully planned sketches—worthy of a frame themselves—diagramed the arrangement of each course. Plates proved the ultimate canvas, and exquisite ingredients served as the medium. A Pollock-inspired smattering of seeds, grains, lentils and ink—showered with edible petals—served as a first course. Wild game terrine was tiled out with pickled root vegetables and mustard to become a Mondrian, while a cioppino of black bass, calamari and fennel was served in Warhol-inspired soup cans. The Rothko-esque entrée wowed guests with stacked cuts of a New York strip, potato pave, wild mushroom, aspic, carmelized onion and thyme; a Calder-style dessert featured pineapple, blood orange, white chocolate and coconut.
Equally as compelling as this inimitable fare were the wine pairings selected by Japko, who educates the masses about wine through his blog. His selections led guests around the world in a brilliant tour of sake, Loire Valley Gamay, Austrian blaufränkisch, Bordeaux and petit manseng. Even the tablecloths honed in on the theme, which were hand-painted by Mark, while colorful artist’s manikins—holding single blossoms and placed at each table—were a subtle nod to the molding of inspired minds. When festivities came to a close, guests were gifted with Cinda’s new “b Luxe” cosmetic bag, and, from the chef, a puffy-grained chocolate square—the proverbial cherry on top for these prolific power players.