Ribelle’s Tim Maslow Named Food & Wine Best New Chef

Tim Maslow, now a Best New Chef winner.

Each year, Food & Wine magazine christens a new class of up-and-coming chef elite with the designation of “Best New Chef.” Previous Boston-area winners are a who’s-who of behind-the-stove prowess: Gordon Hamersley, Barbara Lynch, Jody Adams, Tony Maws, and, more recently, Barry Maiden (Hungry Mother, BNC 2009) and Matthew Gaudet (West Bridge, BNC 2013). This year, Boston’s back on the list, with a prize for chef Tim Maslow of Ribelle and Strip-T’s.

I chatted with Maslow yesterday about his win, as he was traversing Manhattan for a slew of secret Best New Chef events. He said he found out about the win when the Ribelle team told him he had a call from Food & Wine Editor-in-Chief Dana Cowin.

“It’s exciting, but I’m not going to let my ego get to me,” Maslow says.

When Ribelle received four stars from the Boston Globe shortly after opening, Maslow told Boston last year, he felt it was a bit of a double-edged sword:

At first, my father, myself, and Theresa Paopao [beverage director and general manager] looked at it as something amazing; maybe something we didn’t deserve, but something that was totally necessary for us to continue doing what we wanted to do. I thought, “Finally, somebody trusts us.” But what we’re finding as we move forward is that those four stars come with a stigma. People expect more than we ever intended on offering.

So what about this time?

“I’m just going to keep doing what I do best. I’m not worried about fallout or fanfare,” Maslow says. “I’m in New York for two days, and then I am coming back to Boston to cook.”