Chef just tasting the waters

Wednesday, June 7, 2006 | 7:39 a.m.

Elise Eden and Richard Craft planned to peruse the art galleries at Holsum Lofts on Friday, but instead were seduced by the aroma luring them into a cooking demonstration at Cheflive.

"It's the curry," said Mykal Muegge, spokeswoman for the Internet cooking show that officially opens later this month in the building at 241 W. Charleston Blvd. "He's been torturing us for the last hour."

The culinary tease was local Le Cordon Bleu instructor and Chef Peter Sherlock, whose resume includes the kitchens of New York's Waldorf Astoria and the local Stirling Club at Turnberry Place.

In three sessions Friday, Sherlock whipped up a black bean soup, shrimp with curry and shrimp with pesto for the salivating First Friday crowds meandering through Holsum Lofts.

"We're just sampling now," Sherlock said as he provided First Friday visitors a taste of what is normally an hourlong afternoon show. He has been a regular chef at the production studio, where Cheflive plans to lure tourists to daily cooking demonstrations by local and national chefs.

For weeks Cheflive has been catering exclusively to concierge groups and travel Web sites that might plug it as a novel way to spend a Las Vegas afternoon.

"You can only drink so much, gamble so much, shop so much," says Scott Proctor, Cheflive's chief financial officer. "So what's next? You have the Hoover Dam and us."

But who's going to pay the $45 admission fee for such a show, samples of that day's menu and a picture with the chef?

"Everybody," says John Guinivere, Cheflive founder and formerly a personal chef. The admission price pales in comparison to Strip shows, he says, adding that the "real" money will come from Internet downloads at www.ChefLive.com, and from television shows, which is next in his plans. The studio is also available for private events, children's parties with puppet Chef Bob and healthy cooking classes.

Guinivere says his friends and peers thought he was crazy when he came up with the idea and purchased the Web site in 1998. But he was interested in streaming video and Internet possibilities and knew that his efforts wouldn't be costly.

Guinivere says he already has an assortment of chefs under contract, including Luciano Pellegrini, executive chef and owner of Valentino Las Vegas, and Chef John Howie of Seattle, both of whom are on his advisory board.

As a Norah Jones song filtered through the studio at the close of Friday evening's first demonstration, visitors Eden and Craft cleaned any trace of soup from their plastic spoons and discussed whether they would have included ham in their ingredients, as Sherlock had done.

"I would have made it without," Eden says while staring off in the distance. "But this is delicious. I've always wanted to know how to make black bean soup."