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:::2006::: Chamber of Commerce Nevada  Charlie Palmer Group  |
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Ken Fredrickson Ken Fredrickson’s most formative experience was with Chef Charlie Trotter at Charlie Trotter’s in both Chicago and Las Vegas. Ken worked with Trotter for over a year. At this time he was committed to mastering formal service as well as developing an in-depth knowledge of food, wine and the restaurant business. In 1995, Ken left Charlie Trotter’s to take a full-time sommelier position with Las Vegas based chef and restaurateur Andre Rochat. Working with predominately French wine, Fredrickson opened two restaurants for Rochat and wrote both of their wine programs. During this time, Fredrickson passed the Sterling Advanced Sommelier Course with the highest score and received the American Express Scholarship. Using the Scholarship monies, Fredrickson sat for the Advanced course given by the Court of Master Sommeliers and passed, becoming one of only about forty people qualified to sit for the Master Sommelier Diploma. There are currently less than 70 Master Sommeliers in the United States. Fredrickson became the 97th Master Sommelier in the world in April, 2000 and held the title of youngest active Master for two years. After passing the Advanced course, Fredrickson was recruited by Wolfgang Puck to run the Las Vegas Spago and write the wine list for the new Chinois. The wine list Fredrickson created for Chinois was met with critical acclaim. S. Irene Verbela, food critic for the Los Angeles Times, wrote, "Fredrickson’s wine list has got to be the hippest in town, in fact it’s eclectic enough to be cutting edge in Manhattan or West Hollywood." In the autumn of 1998, Fredrickson left Spago and Chinois to open his own restaurant and first entrepreneurial venture. Restaurant Terroir opened for business in February 1999 in the resort town of Jackson, Wyoming. With the success of Terroir Fredrickson developed a small group of investors and purchased an existing retail wine company. Then Fredrickson redeveloped the concept and took the business to the internet and also established a successful wine bar concept in an adjoining space called Koshu. Both ventures were extremely profitable and in 2001 Fredrickson sold all interests in Jackson Wyoming and set his sights on Denver CO. Arriving in Denver Fredrickson purchased a Mexican restaurant and began to embark on creating the “best” restaurant in the west. Fredrickson’s 17 month project included gutting an entire 7k sq. ft. space and developing and designing the space from the ground up. Using a consulting architecture firm the team created Adega Restaurant and Wine Bar. Adega was awarded “Best New Restaurant” in the US by Esquire Magazine and the Chef was awarded top 10 New Chefs by Food and Wine Magazine. Perhaps the most gratifying part of the project was Fredrickson’s hand in the space planning and his complete redesign of the kitchen. With more than a dozen accolades from local press as Denver’s premiere dining destination it was time to move on. In October 2002 Fredrickson came back to Las Vegas and opened a small boutique wine and liquor wholesale Distributorship. Nevada Wine Agents is southern Nevada’s premier wholesaler of Fine wine with a customer base of who’s who in the local restaurant scene. Nevada Wine Agents is in the middle of expanding its facility and will soon be near 20k sq. ft. with 5 sales representatives and all aspects of the business being handled in house. Fredrickson also has a small consulting company that has been instrumental in cellar management for top collectors and assisting new restaurant properties with all aspects of restaurant operations. Fredrickson has trained service staff for Four Seasons, MGM Mirage, Bellagio and numerous 5 star properties across the country. Fredrickson has been published in trade magazines and interviewed by countless magazines on beverage industry related topics. In his free time Ken can be found spinning records on his technic 1200’s or getting away to a quiet stream doing his best fly fishing for wild trout. |
