Lights, Camera, Action — and Chef Bradley Ogden

Chef Bradley Ogden's sliders.

The chef who co-founded Lark Creek Restaurant Group in the Bay Area and made farm-to-table cooking his mantra long before it was fashionable, has returned to the Bay Area after being gone for eight years.

Bradley Ogden, who most recently opened Root 246 restaurant in Solvang, moved to San Jose’s Evergreen district in January to start a new phase in his culinary career. It includes a new multimedia company with partner Chris Kelly, Facebook’s first general consul.

Ogden and his son, Bryan, greet guests on Super Bowl Sunday.

A film crew was on hand to capture the cooking.

In the works is a new cooking show, “Real Food with Chef Bradley Ogden,” which will be shopped around to various TV networks. I got a sneak peek on Super Bowl Sunday, when Ogden invited me and a host of friends to his home for a cooking extravaganza, which was filmed in part for his show.

The show, which will showcase artisan purveyors and farmers, also will have Ogden cooking with friends and family, including his son, Bryan, also a chef, who used to cook at Ogden’s eponymous restaurant at Caesars Palace.

Tacos with homemade mole sauce and guacamole.

What's a football game without fried chicken wings?

To say the party was a feast would be an understatement. But when you have two top chefs in the kitchen, that’s to be expected. Every inch of table space was laden with mini grilled cheese sammies, deviled eggs, ribs, buttermilk fried chicken wings, steak tacos with homemade tortillas, sliders with homemade dill pickles, mac ‘n’ cheese, enough Dungeness crab to feed an army, the world’s tastiest hummus, ceviche and mini crème brulees.

Not surprisingly, the kids at the party inhaled the mac 'n' cheese.

Ceviche in the Yankee Pier-style, one of the restaurants founded by Ogden's Lark Creek Restaurant Group.

The feast may have been in honor of the Super Bowl. But it also was a fitting welcome home for this chef, who left his mark in the Bay Area long ago and has returned to begin an exciting new chapter in his life.

To find out more about Ogden’s plans, read my story in yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle Food section.

Recipes by Bradley Ogden: Buttered Brussels Sprouts and Chestnuts

And: Butterscotch Pudding

And: Overnight Soft Herb Rolls

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