Rick Bayless on Rahm Emanuel's Cooking Skills: 'He Couldn't Get It Done'

Apparently, chef and restaurant mogul Rick Bayless' favorite dish right now is gossiping about Mayor Rahm Emanuel's culinary skills—or lack thereof, as the case may be.

Bayless brought up the mayor's deficiencies in the kitchen during a speaking engagement Tuesday at the City Club of Chicago, the Chicago Tribune reports. The man behind the Chicago eateries Frontera Grill and XOCO had a chance to see what a threat to good eating Emanuel was when the mayor was Bayless' sous chef during last year's Chicago Gourmet festival.

"I'd give him just one simple thing and he couldn't get it done — he was just chopping some stuff — and so when I started razzing him about that, he razzed me right back," Bayless told the Tribune's Chicago Inc. after Tuesday's event.

But Emanuel might have gotten the last laugh in this bit of verbal sparring.

"And he started razzing me about maybe there were some code violations at some of my restaurants and maybe I'd want to get in touch with some of my staff right away."

Despite trashing Emanuel as possible budding chef, Bayless did say he enjoyed doing the demonstration with the mayor and thinks they should turn it into a traveling act, Chicago Inc. reports.

Interesting idea. Is there a Food Channel audience out there for Rick and Rahm?

More via the Chicago Tribune

PHOTO: Rick Bayless and Mayor Rahm Emanuel (Bayless image via Joshua M. Thompson | Wikimedia Commons; Emanuel image via City of Chicago)

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