The Ashleigh Wine & Sake Lounge- Chef Colin Stewart

On this week’s edition of the Flavors of Northwest Arkansas podcast, we’re in Rogers at the Ashleigh Lounge talking to Chef Colin Stewart.

We also introduce a new podcast. It’s called Bien The Know. I host it with Bienvenue (now the title makes sense!) Owner & Chef William Mauk. We have culinary discussions, talk food and wine culture and Chef William will take your recipe questions- just hit us up on our social media. We’ll also have special guests. The monthly podcast will come out on the 15^th of every month and the first episode is up, so check it out here, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Now, some congratulations are in order! The readers of Celebrate Magazine have spoken! Celebrate held voting for their VERY BEST categories of 2024, and Congrats goes to Mermaids in Fayetteville as they win for the VERY BEST seafood restaurant. Hurry over to check them out, because as you’ve heard here, they’ll be closing at the end of the year.

Also, big congrats goes out to Cura Culinary. They won the VERY BEST in the fine dining category. Of course, they reside in Bentonville Provisions at the moment, but as they told us on their episode here in late July, they have big plans for moving into their own spot!

Colin Stewart is the executive chef of The Ashleigh Lounge, the new wine, sake and small plate bar in Rogers. He’s originally from the Buffalo area but has been in NWA for a good while.

He’s had just about every job you could imagine along the way but eventually got a job cooking, which he fell in love with. He’s become a high-end chef without being formally trained. He’ll tell you about his path, and the BIG part that being a stay-at-home Dad played into his education.

Speaking of education, he’s learned quite a bit from chefs around these parts that he’s worked with. And if you catch him staring at you while you’re eating his food, you’ll know why. It’s a good thing.

He also talks about his food and will tell us how different preparing small plates is from entrée-sized meals, as well as getting new menu’s together in basically no time. He’s a fun storyteller.

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