Urban Hill’s executive chef Nick Zocco is becoming somewhat of a food legend in Utah. The first thing that earned him legendary status? Beating Bobby Flay on his Food Network show “Beat Bobby Flay.”
When he got invited to the show, he was a bit hesitant at first. Zocco worked in Flay’s signature kitchen the Mesa Grill in Las Vegas, Nevada, for six years, so going on the show was a reunion of sorts.
“I kind of had to take a day to think about it. I’m nervous,” Zocco told me. “But why not? Why wouldn’t I do this? You’re going to go back and meet up with a chef you worked for and whatever happens, happens.”
The show was filmed in January 2025, but the episode didn’t air until July 2025. So he had to keep a big secret for about seven months.
“I had to keep my mouth shut and put on my poker face essentially,” Zocco said.
For the first round, the show pits two chefs against each other to compete for a chance to compete against Bobby Flay.
In Zocco’s episode, he and another chef created a delicious dish centered around ground pork. He won the judges over with a pork albondigas on a smoky tomato sauce and creamy polenta.
Beating Bobby Flay
Next, he had to beat Flay with a signature dish.
The dish of choice: chile relleno.
In the show, Flay and the competing chef craft their own version of a signature dish to wow and woo the judges. While Zocco worked in Flay’s kitchen, he made chile relleno “thousands of times.”
“I went for the jugular,” Zocco joked.
He knew if he could do something a little bit different and lean into his own style, it could provide him an advantage.
And it worked.
The chef crafted a dish with lump crab and corn stuffed into a chile served with New Mexican red chile, black bean paste with pickled onion and chile, crema and cilantro served on top.
The judges loved what he created, and he ultimately won the major prize — and earned the pride of beating Bobby Flay.
Now that dish is on the menu at Urban Hill and has “become its own monster,” jumping to “No. 1 on both the brunch and dinner menus.”
If you want to tune into the episode with Zocco, it’s on Season 39, Episode 7, streaming on HBO Max.
Becoming a James Beard Award semifinalist
That isn’t the only major recognition Zocco has received lately. He was recently named a semifinalist for a James Beard Award for best chef in the Mountain region. It’s the third time in three straight years that he’s been a semifinalist. He became a finalist for the award within the first year of opening Urban Hill.
“I’m just extremely happy for our team,” Zocco said. “Being part of a group of people that really care and are passionate about the hospitality industry means a lot. I can’t do any of this without my team. That’s what it comes down to. It’s great to represent Salt Lake and Utah.”
The finalists are announced March 31.
The rise of an award-nominated chef
Growing up in Los Alamos, New Mexico, Zocco was fascinated with cooking. While most kids were tuning into cartoons after school, 7-year-old Zocco was watching chefs on PBS.
One of his favorites was about a Chinese chef called “Yan Can Cook.”
“He was just really funny, just a funny guy. He only used a Chinese cleaver,” Zocco said.
One dish he remembers working on perfecting was his mom’s chicken noodle soup recipe with dumplings.
“It had some technique to it where each time I made it, it got better and better,” Zocco said. “But it wasn’t some super technical dish, it’s just one dish I remember starting when I was learning to cook.”
As he became a teenager, he started to think that being in a kitchen was something he really wanted to do, so as he got closer to graduating high school, he reached out to a chef in Santa Fe to see if there were any opportunities in his kitchen.
“They offered me a job,” Zocco said. “This was one of the best restaurants in Santa Fe at the time, and they were just like, ‘the fact that you’re interested, we’ll teach you.’”
He worked his way around Santa Fe for about seven years and decided he needed something new, so he jetted off to Las Vegas to learn more and really elevate his cooking to the next level.
While in Vegas, he worked at a few different restaurants learning new techniques and skills to build on his career at each one. He landed a position at Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill where he worked as a line cook for three years and then three more years as the sous chef.
“It was really cool to see Bobby in the kitchen and to see his food and his style,” Zocco said. “I put six years in there. It was so fast. Six years blew by. It was a lot of fun.”
After six years, he moved on to work at the SW Steakhouse at the Wynn Resort, which was a “really fun job and an intense job.”
“Mesa Grill and SW taught me a sense of how do you do fine dining at volume and consistency,” Zocco said. “That’s basically what I’ve learned to do here — high volume, large restaurant but keep things tight, consistent, delicious, over and over each night."
Why he chose Utah
After being in Vegas for a while, Zocco and his wife decided they wanted a change of scenery. Zocco grew up in New Mexico, but he was born in Utah and grew up visiting the Beehive State to see family and always felt a connection to the area.
They packed up for Salt Lake City, and Zocco got a job at Tupelo in Park City.
After a couple years, the owners of Hilltop Hospitality reached out to see if he would be interested in opening Urban Hill, a chic new restaurant in downtown Salt Lake City.
“They wanted me to be involved from the beginning and give me the opportunity to kind of feel out what it’s like to open a restaurant from the ground up,” Zocco said.
Three years later, business at Urban Hill is booming, with new clients showing up every night.
The menu centers around a lot of seafood dishes, which happens to be Zocco’s favorite thing to cook.
Although Utah is a landlocked state, Zocco pointed out that with today’s technology, the seafood you get in Utah could potentially be just as fresh as what you get in a coastal city.
“Times have changed. I could get some of the freshest seafood in the world shipped to me within a couple of days,” Zocco said. “I don’t think there’s enough information to the public that accentuates that opportunity. My oysters are probably just as fresh as the guy that’s in New York City with the harbor 2 miles down the road.”
Building the food community in Salt Lake City
The Utah food scene excites Zocco so much so that he decided to put together some chef collaboration dinners to celebrate what some of the other chefs are doing around the state.
“Being involved in the community is amazing, and I’m trying to do more of that as I grow in my position,” Zocco said.
For the dinners, Zocco will reach out to a chef he respects and have them come create a menu together, and then the two chefs put on a meal for 40 to 45 people at Urban Hill, providing guests a way to experience a meal from “two chefs that are doing cool food.”
“It’s also a fusion style because you take each other’s styles and melt them together and you’ve created something special,” Zocco said.
The effort is a means to engage more with his fellow hospitality industry folks while also offering a unique culinary experience for those who attend.
“I think it’s important that we have more good restaurants in this city, because truly great cities create truly great restaurants,” Zocco said. “The more restaurants we have here that are top-notch, quality, really inspiring places where people can eat and eat diverse food, the better.”
What I ordered
I stopped by Urban Hill after work on a Tuesday to try out some of the dishes I had been hearing about. Here’s what I tried.
- Chile relleno: I had to try the Bobby Flay-defeating dish, and I’ll tell you that it lived up to the hype. The lump crab was a luxurious touch, with the classic Oaxacan cheese reminding you that you’re still eating a chile relleno. The black bean paste was also a star in that dish.
- Asian sea bass: This dish was also incredibly delicious. The outside was crispy and charred in the best way, leaving the inside to be a juicy and flavorful fish dish. The coconut rice offered a sweet taste alongside a little crunch from the cashews.
- Bananas foster basque cheesecake: This dessert was decadent and scrumptious. It comes with a caramelized banana ganache, rum-caramel sauce and banana chips. It’s creamy and sweet and a great way to end the night.
The service at Urban Hill was excellent, and I will rave about the food to anyone who will listen. It might be a little pricier, but it’s worth it for the experience, in my opinion.
“If you want a celebration experience, come to Urban Hill,” Zocco said. “I’m just so grateful for all the support I’ve been shown. It’s pretty remarkable.”
