Food: IACP's Three Hot Chefs Tomorrow At Hotel Saint Cecilia

As the IACP Conference approaches this week, Austin's streets will be teeming with chefs, writers, and restauranteurs eager to network, sightsee, and eat. The first of many notable events occurring this week is a charity dinner for The Culinary Trust (which provides both scholarships and grants for entering culinary students to attend culinary school and donates toward hunger relief causes) with three of the conference's biggest names.

The first chef isn't a stranger to 78704 - in fact, he's based there. Uchi and Uchiko's Tyson Cole arrives at the event on a wave of publicity, as he's recently won a James Beard award and been named Chow.com's "Most Innovative Chef" of 2011. New York's Brad Farmerie may also be familiar to Austin food fans - at the Hill Country Wine + Food Festival, he's the chef who cooked the beloved blood sausage waffles with poached pears and foie gras at the fantastic Live Fire! event. The event will also feature noted Seattle chef Holly Smith, who has both won raves for her Northern Italian cooking at Cafe Juanita and been featured on Iron Chef America (which she won.)

The event organizers are promising a night where all three chefs will "showcase the fusion of great taste and fresh, healthy ingredients in a memorable evening...in a setting known for its music, edgy art and vintage décor. Guests will sample a variety of dishes, meet and mingle with the chefs, and can bid on unique experiences in a special auction." Tickets aren't cheap ($135), but considering the caliber of the visiting chefs, gourmands might just find it worth the splurge.