How Celebrity Chefs Create Dishes For The U.S. Open

Alex Guarnaschelli knew that when she brought signature dishes from her famed New York restaurant Butter to her restaurant at the U.S. Open she needed to simplify recipes, even if just slightly. After a few years honing the craft of serving at the fast-paced tennis event, she, along with a bounty of celebrity chefs offering up an array of flavors across the grounds, has worked hand-in-hand with Levy to turn signature concepts into repeatable recipes.

Merging the popularity of celebrity chefs—for the 2024 U.S. Open that means chefs stretching from the food village into the restaurants—requires a hand-off between celebrity ideas to a host of Levy chefs who can take the ideas and run with them.

“It is about understanding what their vision is,” Ron Krivosik, Levy culinary senior vice president, tells me about the connection between the chefs. “Cooking is cooking. Food is food. As long as you know what they’re looking for, that is the easy part.”

Guarnaschelli tells me that she brings her team with her to the U.S. Open to collaborate with the chefs from Levy, so both sides can fully understand the recipes and how to execute them. For chefs accustomed to running a traditional restaurant, the sheer volume and pace of the U.S. Open can sometimes be overwhelming. For the Levy chefs, they need to learn an entirely new menu. “It is so great to be collaborative and supportive,” Guarnaschelli says about working together before the event starts. “We let chefs chef.”

Krivosik says the main thing chefs new to the Open must understand is the volume and pace of food. He says Guarnaschelli grasped it all, which helps create a smoother-running restaurant once she imparts that vision to the team putting it together. “You can see it on paper, but once you work through it with Alex and her chef Michael [Jenkins], you understand what it is. It is simplistic, great food.”

As Guarnaschelli knows well, one of the key tricks to creating an ideal dish for mass appeal that can also get turned around quickly is simplifying the steps. Krivosik says, for example, if chefs have a dish with eight steps, it simply won’t fly at the busy U.S. Open. “You have to understand volume and reduce down the steps,” he says. “As long as we don’t jeopardize the quality, if you can get to that end result in five steps instead of eight, we will serve top-quality food all the time.”

He recounts a time a new chef came onto the site with a lobster roll, toasting the bun each time an order was made. That slowed the process, so Krivosik suggested pre-toasting dozens of buns. The chef wasn’t sold until they realized those lobster rolls were selling so fast the bread wasn’t sitting at all. “It is little things like that,” he says. “We are still going to execute and do whatever the guest wants, but you can save time.”

For Guarnaschelli, serving at the U.S. Open is worth the effort to refine the recipes. “I love this event, I came here when I was a kid,” she says. “I have a U.S. Open T-shirt from 1982. I came so stary-eyed and felt like I was stepping into another world.”

That’s why Guarnaschelli wants what she serves to have a taste of New York City, even with her Mediterranean and Italian twist. Simplifying recipes, she says, is often about the quality of the ingredients. She works with families that have been in Little Italy for over 100 years, making their own cheese and backing cheesecake in an oven a century old. “It elevates the food by serving these products and it gives us more time to curate everything that is around it,” she says. “We are making it feel cohesive. People are hungry and invigorated, and the adrenaline is high. We are trying to curate an experience that speaks to that mood. To me, the food and the venue have to serve that larger electricity.”

Around The US Open Grounds

From Fare by Alex Guarnaschelli to other celebrity chef appearances, the U.S. Open is full of food experiences.

The U.S. Open features seven on-site restaurants, 60 concession stands, 90 suites and 250 behind-the-scenes chefs and hospitality team members to bring it all to the roughly one million fans that show up annually.

Key restaurants include Michelin-starred Ed Brown, Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto and James Beard Award-winning Kwame Onwuahci teaming up on Aces in Arthur Ashe Stadium. That comes next door to the Benjamin Steakhouse-run Champions Bar & Grill, which last year sold 4,684 steaks to over 11,2000 guests. The popular steakhouse is known for its porterhouse steak for two, while the filet is the most popular individual order. Steak fries come as the top side and a Caesar salad the top-ordered appetizer.

Simon Kim brings his Cote Korean Steakhouse from New York into the U.S. Open with Coqodaq, an elevated Korean-inspired fried chicken. Known for The Golden Nugget, served this year on the club level of Ashe, deep-pocketed fans can get the nugget with black truffle and 24-carat gold, a six-piece order running $100. The nuggets are also available without the special additions for a more affordable cost.

Other returning chefs include David Burke’s Mojito and Josh Capon keeping seafood lively at his Capon’s Fly Fish.

The tournament also features new dishes and returning items from Pat LaFrieda Meat Co., San Matteo NYC, Dos Toros Taqueria, La Casa de Masa, Red Hook Lobster Pound, Fuku, Eataly, Crown Shy, Korilla BBQ, Poke Yachty, Hill Country BBQ, King Souvlaki, Stacked Sandwich Shop, The Migrant Kitchen, The Nourish Spot and Van Leeuwen Ice Cream.

Returning to New York is the Carnegie Deli Group. The pop-up food court location of a restaurant that served the city for almost 100 years offers a mixture of options, highlighted by corned beef and pastrami sandwiches.

One of the most well-known alcoholic beverages in sports washes it all down. The Grey Goose Honey Deuce returns after selling 450,000 drinks at the 2023 U.S. Open.