Chef Ben Rabbani Out at Downtown's El Big Bad

Popular gastro-cantina El Big Bad may have just thrown an official grand opening celebration this past weekend, but it was quickly followed by the announcement that their chef Ben Rabbani would be leaving the restaurant. Co-owner Lea McKinney sent out this statement:

After helping us with the menu and through our grand opening, our friend Ben Rabbani and El Big Bad will part ways. He's a great chef. We hit a fork in the road about the vision of what this place could be and at the end of the day we decided to part as friends. We look forward to supporting him in his next project.

We are weighing a couple of different options for Chef and will keep you posted. In the mean-time, we are in good hands with our existing staff.

Rabbani joined the team after consulting chef Randy Rucker helped to create a modern Mexican fusion menu. In other big, bad news, McKinney and co-owner Steve Sharma have yet to share where their the new address for El Gran Malo—El Big Bad's older sibling which shuttered to relocate to a new location. McKinney told Eater some months ago that they were definitely hoping to stay in their former Heights-area neighborhood. El Gran Malo's old address will be the home of Roost owner chef Kevin Naderi's upcoming restaurant Lillo & Ella, slated to open in May.
· El Big Bad [Twitter]
· El Big Bad Opens to the Public; El Gran Malo is Moving [-EHOU-]
· All Other Chef Shuffles [-EHOU-]

Chef Ben Rabbani [Photo: Amber Ambrose/EHOU Flickr Pool]