Registration
This event is now at full capacity. To join the waitlist, please come to Paepcke Auditorium in person between 4:30 – 5:30 pm. The waitlist is first come, first served. If you prefer to view the livestream of the event online, please click here.

Presented as part of the Hurst Lecture Series.

Celebrity chef, restaurateur, and best-selling cookbook author Bobby Flay joins Corby Kummer, food writer and executive director of the Food & Society program at the Aspen Institute for a lively conversation about the evolution of American cuisine. Known for his bold flavors, entrepreneurial spirit, and decades-long presence on television and in restaurants across the country, Flay reflects on the craft of cooking, restaurant culture, and the changing ways Americans experience food. Together, Flay and Kummer explore the intersections of culinary creativity, business, and hospitality, as well as the enduring power of food to bring people together.
Paepcke Auditorium, doors at 5:00 pm

Parking
Parking is very limited. Please carpool, walk, bike, or ride RFTA. The Gillespie parking lot (3rd and Gillespie) will be open for this event, but the Paepcke parking lot will be closed.

Bobby Flay is an award-winning chef, restaurateur, cookbook author and television personality. He’s opened numerous upscale restaurants in New York City and beyond, the first of which was the renowned Mesa Grill in 1991. In December of 2023, Bobby opened Brasserie B at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. This restaurant celebrates bustling Parisian brasseries, serving classic French dishes with tons of the impactful flavor that Flay has become known for. Brasserie B is directly next door to Bobby’s coastal Italian-inspired restaurant at Caesars Palace called Amalfi. In addition to his fine dining restaurants, there are eleven outposts of Bobby’s fast-casual concept, Bobby’s Burgers, across the country, with more set to open later this year. Bobby is the best-selling author of 18 cookbooks with number 19 currently in-the-works. The most recent, Bobby Flay: Chapter One, hit shelves this October, 2024. He has starred in dozens of Food Network programs, including Bobby’s Triple Threat, Beat Bobby Flay, BBQ Brawl, and Iron Chef America, as well as numerous specials. Among his many distinctions are the 1993 James Beard Award for Rising Star Chef of the Year, his induction into the James Beard Foundation’s Who’s Who of Food and Beverage in America in 2007. Bobby has received five Daytime Emmy Awards for Boy Meets Grill, Grill It! with Bobby Flay and Barbecue Addiction.

In 2015, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame – the first chef ever to be awarded one. Bobby is the proud father to daughter Sophie, who works as a journalist for ABC. He also has two Maine Coon cats, Canelo and Stella. In 2021, Bobby and (his beloved cat) Nacho Flay launched their very own brand of chef-driven cat food, Made By Nacho, which is available for purchase online and at your favorite pet stores across the country.

Corby Kummer is executive director of Food & Society at the Aspen Institute, a senior lecturer at the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science, and a senior editor of The Atlantic, for which he was a longtime food columnist and originated a vertical on food, sustainability, policy, and food justice. He attended the Loomis-Chafee School and received a BA from Yale College.

He is the author of The Joy of Coffee and The Pleasures of Slow Food, the first book in English on the Slow Food movement, and has been restaurant critic of New York, Boston, and Atlanta magazines and a food and food policy columnist for The New Republic. He has received six James Beard Journalism Awards. One of the country’s most widely quoted experts on food justice and food culture in the United States, Corby is a featured commentator on food and food policy every week on WGBH’s Boston Public Radio.

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