Celebrity chef is hot stuff in N.Y., Utah hometown

The Sundance Film Festival attracts lots of celebrity chefs to feed the film industry's movers, shakers and hangers-on.

Last weekend, Giada De Laurentiis (of the "Today" show) and Cat Cora (an Iron Chef with the Food Network) both prepared private meals at Bon Apetit magazine's "Supper Club on Main."

Friday night, Chris Bellanca of New York's LeCirque restaurant manned the kitchen of Chefdance, a nightly, invitation-only dinner at The Onassis restaurant in Park City.

And headlining Saturday's Chefdance — and a private dinner for rapper 50 Cent — was Todd Mark Miller of the trendy New York steakhouse, STK.

Yes, the same Todd Mark Miller who was once at the helm of Salt Lake City's Fresco and Trio during the early 2000s and the Metropolitan during 2006.

The same guy who went to East High School and worked at Deer Valley while going to college and then became a chef at Four Seasons restaurants in Las Vegas, Singapore and the Maldives. The same guy whose $100 Philly Cheesesteak sandwich got him an invitation to be on the "Late Show With David Letterman."

So what's it like coming back to your hometown as a star chef?

"Well, I wouldn't call it that," Miller said in a telephone interview Friday afternoon. "I can make a good meal, but at the end of the day, the world is filled with a bunch of people, and I'm just one of those people."

Well, OK. But past guest chefs at Chefdance include Tyler Florence of the Food Network and Rocco DiSpirito from the reality series "The Restaurant."

Although being a guest chef is prestigious, it's a challenge to walk into an unfamiliar kitchen that morning and pull off a fabulous four-course dinner for 250 people. But Miller learned a few things as a guest chef last year.

"I bought a bunch of stuff already prepped, and I'll finish it here, so the tedious jobs are already done," he said. "Last year I did everything the day of."

On Saturday, he served a lobster risotto and a "new-style" pot roast, "along the lines of a high-end steak house." It was served medium-rare, with a potato puree laced with fresh white Oregon truffles and micro-celery, baby carrots and pearl onions.

During a phone interview Monday morning, Miller said he also did a special vegetarian menu for several of 50 Cent's guests.