News

Chef Ana Gonzalez and her culinary team at Bleu are pleased to announce Chef Ana’s Spooktacular Wine & Food Pairing on Thursday, October 27, 2016, hosted by Bobby Maupin of West Tennessee Crown Distributors!

Seating begins at 6:00pm & dinner begins at 6:30pm. $60.00 per person plus tax & gratuity.

Please valet park through the Westin Hotel so we may validate your parking.

Make your reservations by calling 901-334-5950 or make a reservation online.

Chef Ana Gonzalez and her culinary team at Bleu are pleased to announce Chef Ana’s Afro-Columbian Wine Tasting Dinner on Thursday, September 22, 2016, hosted by Bobby Maupin of West Tennessee Crown Distributors!

Seating begins at 6:00pm & dinner begins at 6:30pm. $60.00 per person plus tax & gratuity.

Please valet park through the Westin Hotel so we may validate your parking.

Make your reservations by calling 901-334-5950 or make a reservation online.

Chef Ana Gonzalez and her culinary team at Bleu are pleased to announce Chef Ana’s Australia & New Zealand Wine Tasting Dinner on Thursday, August 24, 2016, hosted by Bobby Maupin of West Tennessee Crown Distributors!

Seating begins at 6:00pm & dinner begins at 6:30pm. $60.00 per person plus tax & gratuity.

Please valet park through the Westin Hotel so we may validate your parking.

Make your reservations by calling 901-334-5950 or make a reservation online.

The Memphis Flyer posted the story “Ana Gonzalez takes the Farmers Market Challenge” by John Klyce Minervini.

Have you ever stood in front of a crazy-looking vegetable and thought: What the heck is that? Well, good news. Chefs do it too. That’s what happened the other day, when Ana Gonzalez and I stopped by Memphis Farmers Market.

“They’re called muscadines,” a helpful vendor explained. “They’re like red grapes, but the skin’s a little tougher, and they’ve got one to four hard seeds inside.”

As a proud Colombian, Gonzalez can be forgiven for not knowing about muscadines, which are native to the American South. At five foot six she’s a fireball, and she has the endearing habit of calling her friends “baby.” She also happens to be the executive chef at Bleu in the Westin, where she specializes in small, shareable plates packed with bold, fresh flavors.

Read the full story here.

The Memphis Flyer posted the story “Love Pop on South Main; Bleu’s New Lounge” by John Klyce Minervini.

Over at Bleu — the restaurant in the Westin — they’ve updated their lounge with new paint and furniture. And there’s a brand-new tap system for beer. But the real news at Bleu isn’t the lounge. It’s the revamped menu by chef Ana Gonzalez.

A ball of energy with a tight ponytail, Gonzalez comes to Memphis by way of Colombia. After attending culinary school at Johnson and Wells, she went on to work at Disney’s Contemporary Resort and the Peabody’s Capriccio Grill. In the three months since she came on at Bleu, she has given the restaurant a bold new flavor, emphasizing small plates that feature fresh, local ingredients.

Take the Bacon-Wrapped Shrimp with Polenta Cake ($8). A pair of tiny towers draped with micro-greens from Memphis’ Green Girl Produce, it’s Gonzalez’s mischievous take on shrimp and grits. (Grits and polenta are essentially the same thing; the only difference is the type of corn used and the fineness of the grind.)

Read the full story here.

Ken’s Food Find posted the story “Bleu” by Ken Rogers.

For the week of my birthday (September 24), I decided to fulfill a longtime desire. I finally got around to having lunch at Bleu, the upscale restaurant inside The Westin Hotel in Downtown Memphis. The restaurant faces Third St. and FedExForum’s box office, where I’ve worked for the past two years. The upscale eatery specializes in Modern American cuisine, but my visit centered on its version of a classic. My meal of choice was the Build Your Own (BYO) Sandwich. The sandwich can come in a variety of ways with regards to meat, bun and various toppings. My emphasis was on Bleu’s cheeseburger, hailed as one of the best in town by many media sources such as the blog Best Memphis Burger. I wanted to see if the hype about it was true, so I had lunch there two days after my birthday.

Read the full story here.

Memphis Magazine posted the story “True Bleu” by Hannah Sayle.

Bleu began with a bang last October: A splashy marketing campaign left strategically placed “cleus” about a “neu” restaurant taking over the former location of Sole at the Westin Hotel downtown.

The marketing was gimmicky; the food isn’t. Chef Robert Cirillo has the culinary know-how to back up Bleu’s flashy arrival on the restaurant scene — and the sense to change things up when they aren’t working.

One item that wisely met the chopping block was the Grand Finale, a form of dessert artistry performed by Cirillo directly at the table that required too much time and equipment to sustain.

“It was too demanding,” he says. “I didn’t feel like I was doing it the best that I could, and I didn’t want to bastardize it.”

Other dishes have been more adaptable. As Cirillo transitioned from his former home in Providence, Rhode Island, to the Mid-South, he found that the lobster roll, a staple of every menu in the Northeast, was not capturing the attention of Memphis diners.

Read the full story here.