Aspen’s New Food + Wine Lab

Class is in session at Aspen’s new cooking laboratory.

You might call it a culinary magic act. But instead of master magician performing sleight of hand, it’s a master chef transforming your dining experience. Think Thai food this month, Korean next, and almost anything you’d like if you reserve it for your own private party. This and more is the concept behind the new FunWorldwide Lab in Aspen.

The Lab is tucked away in a corner of the Hyman Mall, in the former location of the Cooking School of Aspen. Restaurateur, nightclub owner, and unabashed Aspen and Snowmass lover Scott DeGraff has spared no expense in transforming the underground hideaway into a state-of-the-art test kitchen, demonstration area, and dining room. Along with DeGraff’s other ventures—including renowned establishments in Chicago, Las Vegas, and Dallas—Junk at the Red Onion and Junk and Liquid Sky at the Snowmass Base Village are spicing up the local dining and nightlife scenes.

Heading up the kitchen is former San Francisco star chef Alison Richman. A cooking whiz whose energy puts that famous bunny’s to shame, Richman wears at least three toques on any given day. As executive chef for DeGraff’s company, Fun Worldwide, she heads up the cooking school and conducts most of the classes at the FunWorldwide Lab, all while doing most of the menu planning and execution for private parties. The facility will occasionally play host to guest chefs, promising some of the big names in the industry.
In addition to being the testing ground for recipes for DeGraff’s restaurant ventures, the Lab is also a place for Aspenites and visitors to learn cooking techniques and recipes by watching Richman and visiting chefs in demonstration cooking classes. “The cooking classes will be designed for different groups of people in Aspen,” says Richman.  “It could be a private school, an activity for people in a company. Each class is geared toward something different.” Kids, too, are able to get in on the act at hands-on cooking classes for the small-handed.

As the word “lab” implies, the space is geared toward experimentation. DeGraff has visions of eventually transforming the establishment into a temporary ethnic-food destination. He sees it as a means of bringing Thai, Vietnamese, Indian, Korean, or almost any other style of food to Aspen without the economic concerns inherent to opening a high-risk restaurant business here. It’s also a way to respond to Aspenites’ insatiable appetite for what’s new and different without the long-term commitment. DeGraff admits that he’s never done anything like this before, but he says he’s willing to take the chance because he’s dismayed by the lack of culinary diversity in Aspen. If his track record as a restaurateur is any indication, it’s a good gamble.

But food alone was not DeGraff’s main motivation in developing FunWorldwide Lab. Instead, it was a response to the dearth of private event space in Aspen. Consequently, he created a subterranean retreat where up to forty people can have a personalized soiree in a sleek, elegant, intimate, and high-tech environment in downtown Aspen. There’s a snazzy audio and video system that creates a visual bridge between the kitchen and the main dining room (the two spaces are separated by a wall) so that no one misses out on any action happening in the kitchen. And then there’s the kitchen itself, dazzling with brushed stainless-steel walls tiles, as well as a small bar. DeGraff calls on his corporate sommelier—Jonathan Ballou—to be the wine answer man for events.

The name FunWorldwide Lab may sound like a theme park, and in a way it’s not far off the mark. Watching someone else cook great food while you get to eat it, hobnobbing with people you like in a private setting that isn’t your home, eating food and drinking wine from a menu you designed, or taking a culinary journey through India without leaving Pitkin County seems like a surefire recipe for fun. But the Lab’s motto says it best: “Where food is the only subject.” If only school had been this delicious.