Executive chef Odell Baskerville found out Friday he is no longer employed at the Arizona Inn, where his cuisine has been the signature of the tony resort.
Baskerville said he didn't want to go into details about his "amicable" departure but that he is on cordial terms with the inn and that it will be helping him find a new job.
Seeming to point to the economic recession, he said, "Knowing what's going on in the world, it wasn't unexpected," but he would not elaborate.
Managers at the Arizona Inn did not return calls Friday afternoon seeking comment.
Baskerville, 52, worked at the inn 11 years. "It was a great place to work, kind of like family," he said. "Working there was conducive to doing great work. I'm going to miss it."
Under his leadership, the Main Dining Room at the Arizona Inn, 2200 E. Elm St., achieved AAA's four-diamond ranking in 2006 for the first time. "It places us in the company of some of the finest restaurants in the nation," Baskerville said then.
The hotel itself, which was 75 years old at the time, had already been four-diamond-rated.
In 2007, Baskerville took first place in the Chef of the Year competition at Pima Community College's Desert Vista Campus, ahead of runners-up Ken Harvey, banquet chef at Loews Ventana Canyon Resort; and Tom Mead, executive chef at Terra Cotta, a prominent Tucson restaurant that closed this January, citing the poor economy.
