Inside Robb Report’s Flavor by Fire 2025

Down in Houston, Aaron Bludorn—along with partners Cherif Mbodji and Victoria Pappas Bludorn—are building out their own dining empire with hit restaurants including Bludorn and Navy Blue. The acclaimed chef first burst onto the national culinary scene thanks to Netflix’s Final Table; but he truly cut his teeth working under Daniel Boulud, eventually becoming the executive chef at Café Boulud. His style of cooking reflects his time in that Michelin-starred kitchen, but also his Pacific Northwest heritage and and ode to the Gulf Coast he now calls home. At Culinary Masters he’ll show off his commitment to seasonal ingredients and a flair for the dramatic by breaking down a whole Bluefiná bluefin tuna from the Gulf and serving up three distinct dishes with it.

Mei Lin won’t only be hosting a cooking class at this year’s Culinary Masters. The acclaimed chef, who snagged the top prize on season 12 of Top Chef and won Tournament of Champions in 2023, will also show her prowess with live-fire cooking. Lin, who grew up in Dearborn, Mich. where there’s a thriving Arab American food scene, will tap into her love of flavors from the Middle East to create cumin lamb kebabs (with sumac onions and herbed labneh) at Flavor by Fire.

Sean Brock has been on a mission to create the perfect pizza after a meal at the pizza joint Savoy in Japan completely blew his mind. The James Beard Award winner and legend of Southern cuisine recently opened Sho Pizza Bar, inspired by the Tokyo-style pies. Brock is no stranger to live-fire cooking: His new restaurant, Darling in Los Angeles, is his ode to the practice and includes a hi-fi lounge. For Flavor by Fire, the chef is showing off the hundreds of hours he’s devoted to pizza by making the ultimate classic: a Margherita.

The husband-and-wife chef duo behind Kisser, Nashville’s popular Japanese café, Leina Horii and Brian Lea have quite the culinary background. Horii’s love of food stems back to her parents’ sushi restaurant, eventually leading her to the cooking space and a gig at Ludo Lefebvre’s beloved Trois Mec in L.A. Lea’s own culinary journey lead him to Trois Mec, too, after he worked at locales such as Charlie Palmer and the Bazaar by José Andrés. Eventually, the pair made it to Music City, where Kisser acts as their ode to Japanese kissaten culture with a Southern California flair. They’re bringing a piece of their creations to Culinary Masters, with a Japanese milk bread featuring tamagoki, wagyu, and uni on the menu.

Verlord Laguatan is the chef and beverage director at the Joseph Nashville, where he oversees any and all things culinary. Known for crafting dishes with bold flavors, Laguatan, who is from the Philippines, honed his skills at Michelin-starred Sepia, in Chicago, before eventually finding his way to Nashville. At Flavor by Fire, he’ll be preparing smoked duck, alongside orange agrodolce and charred corn grits.

It didn’t take Michael Rafidi’s live-fire Palestinian restaurant Albi very long to show its greatness. Back when we visited mere weeks after it first opened its doors in 2020, it was clearly one of the best restaurants in the country—one we crowned No. 2 in our top 10 rankings that year. Albi eventually earned a Michelin star in 2022 and Rafidi took home the James Beard Award for Outstanding Chef in 2024. Rafidi has followed Albi with his hit all-day café Yellow and his genre-bending wine bar and bistro La Shukran, which made our Best New Restaurants list earlier this year. Now, Rafidi’s brining his immense culinary talents to Culinary Masters, where he will serve up Wagyu shawarma alongside embered peppers and tahini.

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At Flavor by Fire, chef Matt Lee will be serving up wood-fire longbeach mushrooms, alongside aji verde, cojita cheese, crispy potato, and cilantro. Lee is a fan of crafting menus surrounded by fresh, locally sourced ingredients, which are always on the menu at Restaurant 917, where he is the executive chef. Previously, he worked at the Restaurant at the Getty as an executive chef, as well as a sous chef at Saddle Peak Lodge in Calabasas.   

After four years at Noma where he rose to the rank of sous chef Trevor Moran headed stateside and in 2014 took the helm of Nashville’s fine dining destination the Catbird Seat. After a successful stint there, he stepped away from kitchens for a few years, before partnering with Catbird Seat’s parent company, Strategic Hospitality, for his quixotic, delightful little restaurant Locust. Only open a few days a week and serving a precise but whimsical menu, it nevertheless remains one of Music City’s toughest reservations. For our live-fire cooking event, he’s tapping into his Irish and British heritage to make Irish pork sausage on a roll.

Pat Martin knows a thing or two about barbecue—specifically, West Tennessee-style whole hog barbecue. Martin’s Bar-B-Que Joint, Hugh-Baby’s BBQ and Burger Shop, and Sweetmilk, are all celebrations of Southern cuisine, covering everything from traditional breakfast inspired by Martin’s grandmother to a classic mid-South burger spot. The pitmaster has also brought his stylings to television, with a second season of Barbecue: Life of Fire now on the air. That show, focused on all things live-fire cooking, makes Martin an ideal chef for Flavor of Fire; at the event, he’ll be making some spare-rib pastor.