Boston Hosts The Forbes Under 30 Summit For The First Time
For the first time ever, Boston will be hosting the Forbes Under 30 Summit. In its biggest year yet, from Oct. 16 through the 19, 5000 of America's top entrepreneurs, legal, and financial experts, media gurus, food professionals, and more will descend upon our city in a convention to blow all others out of the water.
With break off sessions, keynotes, an outdoor music festival and other curated happenings, the four-day extravaganza is topped off with an epic food festival replete with competitive cook-offs and celebrity chefs. This portion of the summit will be hosted by Boston-native Chris Coombs; chef/owner of Deuxave, Boston Chops, and Dbar. In a Daily Meal exclusive, chef Coombs gives us an inside look at what he is most excited for and who/what to keep an eye out for throughout this exciting event.
This is the first year the Forbes Under 30 Summit is going to be held in Boston. As one of Boston's top chefs and a stalwart for the city's culinary industry, what does this mean to you?
This is a unique opportunity for the top, young talent in the world to converge on the City of Boston, and for the city to expose our budding culinary scene to the rest of the world. It's very exciting.
The Daily Meal: Can you tell us a bit about your experience in past Forbes Under 30 Summits and how winning the 'Audience vote' in 2015 helped you forge onwards in your career?
Chris Coombs: The Forbes Under 30 Summit has always been a really positive experience for me personally. It's a tremendous networking opportunity for you to meet the most talented young people in the world that are the best in their respective fields. As far as the Food Festival goes itself, it's really just an honor to cook side by side with some of the most talented chefs in the world, and winning last year was really auxiliary to the experience as a whole, which was tremendously positive overall. Being able to forge strong relationships with some of this young talent is really an honor.
As local host of this year's event and defending champion, what are you most excited about for the Food Festival and competition?
As a co-chair this year, I really don't see myself as a "defending champion," as I'm not competing this year, I'm hosting the competition, but I think we're going to have an incredible event. We've got some impressive young talent coming in and I think it's going to be a great opportunity for the city of Boston to host various guest chef dinners at some popular restaurants around the city, plus the people of Boston will be exposed to culinary talent that may not have another reason to be in New England.
Will you be attending other parts of the Summit event, or busy at your three restaurants across the city?
I will be at most of the events at the Forbes Summit as I have many friends in food, tech and business who will also be on the list. I will also be on a couple panels during the Summit, so the Summit will keep me pretty busy. During the evenings, however, you can bet that I'll be at my restaurants when I'm not at the food festival.
Of all the amazing contestants chosen to be a part of Forbes Under 30 in the Food Competition this year, who (apart from yourself) are you most excited about and why?
I'm thrilled for all of the chefs coming to Boston for their unique talent. Among those, I'm most excited to meet Brian Baxter from Husk in Nashville, Deuki Hong (who's Korean cuisine is on fire in New York City), and John Lasater of Hattie B's Hot Chicken in Nashville. His chicken is awesome.
Well – we certainly can't wait! A huge thank you to chef Chris Coombs for taking the time out of his crazy busy schedule to provide us with some anchors and thoughts to focus on as this event nears. Follow Chris on instagram and twitter @chefchriscoombs.