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    Catch Up With: Custom Chef Gourmet Café

    When Chef Bo Carter opened Custom Chef Gourmet Café in June 2011, he was excited to bring something new to the Downtown lunch landscape. Up against similar eateries in Lexi’s on Third and Market 65, Chef Carter employed a craft-your-own approach to the sandwiches and salads on his menu.

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    That approach was only marginally successful. Chef Carter thought that the food would be easiest part of his new job, but he quickly found out that playing the downtown dining game is trickier than it seems.

    “All I wanted to do was cook, and I was kidding myself thinking that would be enough,” shares Chef Carter on his career. “I had to figure my identity out and say to myself, ‘at the end of the day, no matter what happens, this is what’s most important to me, this is what I want people to remember’.”

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    That “this” is the carefully-crafted flavor combinations in which Chef Carter believes. His love is of scratch-cooking, where every element fits, and where the satisfaction is as much in the preparation as in the devouring.

    Taste the Cherry Chicken Sandwich, with house-made cherry BBQ sauce, blue cheese crumbles, and apple bacon on rosemary focaccia. It’s a straightforward BBQ chicken sandwich, popular this time of year, but Chef Carter’s version is more elegant and complex.

    As is the Asian Pork Sandwich, with 5-spice-rubbed pork belly, pickled Asian salad, and sriracha mayonnaise, the Jacked Chicken Sandwich, a reconstructed spin on Buffalo wings, and the Triple Bs – Bo’s Beef Brisket, now available every day of the week.

    Diners will be able to enjoy this new grub in a freshly-reimagined space that now seats 38 guests inside and 16 on the patio that runs along Third Street. In addition, the floor provides a bird’s eye view of our city, and diligent diners could have fun trying to locate their house or office.

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    All sandwiches at Custom Chef are priced between $6.50 to $8.00, while composed salads, like the Strawberry Spinach, begin at $5.95. Guests can still create their own salad at Custom Chef, where there are 6 protein and over 30 topping choices.

    Custom Chef Gourmet Café is currently open weekdays from 10am – 4pm. They will close at 3pm when winter arrives. For more on Custom Chef, and for a longer look at their menu, follow them at www.facebook.com/pages/Custom-Chef-Gourmet.

    Photos by Ayana Wilson.

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    Ayana Wilson
    Ayana Wilsonhttps://columbusunderground.com
    Ayana Wilson is a former staff writer at Columbus Underground who covered local restaurant industry news.
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