His audience: 14 elegantly dressed guests seated at a "chef's table" in a private dining room with a fireplace.

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"Chef's table" has its own meaning in Buenos Aires, where Manhattan orthodontist Peter Theodorou dined with his girlfriend last December at restaurant Verace .

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It also boasts a suspended glass wine loft, an elevated chef's table with views of both the kitchen and Vegas, and an intimate bar.

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His Downtown Brooklyn grocery store with its tiny restaurant, known as the Chef's Table at Brooklyn Fare, will be imported to Manhattan, albeit in a different format.

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The chef set up a table for one in the corner of the kitchen, and I feasted on foie gras, truffled vermicelli and scallops.

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At theguestchef.net, customers can view a short biography of the chef, peruse the menu and book a table.

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Instead, it serves a selection of the four best cheeses of the day, chosen in the kitchen by his chef Jocelyn Herland and then sent to the table.

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The open kitchen showcases the action from the hotel's executive chef Dallas Orr, who came from the well-known Table Bay Hotel in Cape Town.

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But even acclaim from a chef couldn't compare with what else was happening at the table: Three kids, all under the age of 10, had tried the mussels.

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Basically the chefs were interviewed documentary style, filmed and taped, but the result was converted into these two coffee table editions rather than a film, and in most cases, the chef goes from home to restaurant to, in some cases, a workout session, in order to fully capture what makes them and their dishes tick.

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