Here's What Carrie Baird Will Be Opening at Rosetta Hall

Several years ago, before Carrie Baird rose to fame as a final-four finisher on the Colorado-based season fifteen of Top Chef, she was the executive chef at Brazen in West Highland. A hopeful food-truck operator named Natascha Hess was eating dinner at the chef's counter, discussing her plans with her husband, Steve, and Baird overheard the conversation. The two began talking, and before Hess knew it, she was agreeing to come work for Baird to learn more about professional food production and recipe creation.

Hess and Baird became friends, and Hess went on to open the Ginger Pig food truck, earning our Best Food Truck award in 2018. The same year that the Ginger Pig first hit the streets of Boulder, Baird was introducing America to her fancy toasts and other great cooking on Bravo. But the two never lost touch (Baird even helped Hess out on the truck in its earliest days), and now they've joined forces with a new restaurant group called That's What She Said.

Last fall, Hess moved the Ginger Pig indoors as one of ten food and beverage counters at Rosetta Hall in Boulder, and Baird just left her job as executive chef of Bar Dough to launch her own project, Rose's Classic Americana, an eatery that she'll run from a Rosetta Hall space that will soon be vacant.

Rose's will offer Baird's signature toasts, huevos rancheros (the same recipe she whipped up to beat Bobby Flay) and other breakfast creations, including several grab-and-go items, from 8 to 11 a.m.

Teaming up under the That's What She Said umbrella will allow the two women to combine forces while maintaining their own unique cooking styles. They'll be co-owners of the two operations, but Hess will remain executive chef of the Ginger Pig, which specializes in capturing traditional Chinese and other Asian flavors in modern street-food presentations, and Baird will be executive chef of Rose's. With so much talent and good food together, it seems almost inevitable that the two are planning bigger things for the future.

But for now, Hess says, "It's a dream come true to get to work together again. I have so much respect for what Carrie has accomplished in her career so far, and look forward to what we can do together."

An exact date has not been set, but look for Rose's Classic Americana at Rosetta Hall, 1109 Walnut Street, in the coming weeks.