What do you call chefs who can stay calm, cool and creative, even when faced with a secret ingredient, a picky panel of judges, and a crazy time limit? You call them Top Chefs!
by Courtney Dabney
While most chefs know how to use a pressure cooker, few are brave enough to voluntarily step into one. That is what the Fort Worth, Texas magazine's Top Chef Challenge is all about! Our six challengers were nominated by our readers and selected by the Top Chef panel to face off in this year's competition. The preliminary rounds took place in two elimination events held back-to-back on July 12 at the Texas Appliance Showroom, 840 Airport Freeway, Hurst.
Check Out the Talent
Juan Rodriguez is executive chef at Reata. As a child, he spent his vacations with his grandmother in Monterrey and developed his passion for cuisine by her side. His family still inspires him. On a recent trip he saw his uncle cooking on a 2-foot diameter cast iron comal - that's a flat skillet. "He set it over wood but used an old truck rim to hold it up and over the flame. Best meat I have ever had. Needless to say, I stole his comal and brought it with me," Rodriguez said.
After making it to the final round two years running, Chef Blaine Staniford of Grace Restaurant is back for another stab at the title. He knows fine dining and often resorts to tweezers for intricate platings. When he eats outside the kitchen at Grace, he says, "I almost always order some type of organ meat - foie gras, sweetbreads, whatever is unique - and I always order something raw if it's available."
Chef Eric Hunter calls his Fire Oak Grill a Texas Bistro. There you will find his love of hunting, fishing and camping take on an elegant twist in the dishes he creates. Hunter admits, "I have been accused of having salty food, but it can make or break a dish." That is one reason Fire Oak Grill makes its own bacon at the restaurant and will soon be selling it from an online market.
A graduate of the New England Culinary Institute, Chef Brian Olenjack prepares American cuisine with a Texas flare at his Olenjack's Grille. In the kitchen, Olenjack couldn't live without his black steel sauté pans. "They are the best pans I have ever used, easy to clean and maintain, easy to use and they heat up and hold the temperature well," he says. He loves to add the flavor of bacon to his dishes as well as kosher salt saying, "people seem to underutilize it."
Del Frisco's own Chef Anthony Felli prefers to let impeccable ingredients speak for themselves. He picked up some inspiration on a recent trip to Napa saying, "While visiting Stag's Leap Cellars, we had dinner and the chef prepared a cold salad dish comprised of a variety of brunoised and blanched vegetables that was delightful."
One newcomer to this year's competition is Chef Charles Youts of Classic Cafe in Roanoke. He utilizes a large organic garden at his restaurant. The produce from that patch really gets his creative juices flowing. "Most of our featured dishes are somehow planned around that," he said. "Not a new idea, but exciting for our guests to walk out the door and see where the food they just ate was grown."
The Judges
Table The judges" table for our preliminary round competition was filled with local celebrities in their own right.
Our host and chief judge Tim Love is the chef proprietor of Lonesome Dove Western Bistro, the Love Shack and the new Woodshed Smokehouse. He is a Food Network Iron Chef winner as well as a Bravo Channel Top Chef masters contestant and a Top Chef judge.
Louise Lamensdorf owns Bistro Louise Catering. She was owner and chef at the restaurant of the same name, which she opened in 1996. Louise can be credited with being among the first wave of local chefs who introduced Fort Worth to the rich and varied cuisine of Europe and the Mediterranean. She has expanded both our palate and our culinary curiosity for decades.
Renie Steves is a food critic and writer and author of the books Dallas Is Cooking! and Fort Worth Is Cooking! Renie also co-authored the chapter on Texas in Culinaria USA. She has been chair of the International Association of Culinary Professionals Culinary Trust as well as President of Les Dames d"Escoffier International's 26 chapters. She is also founder of Cuisine Concepts.
Carol Ritchie is well known locally through television. Since 1992, local cable television viewers in Arlington have learned cooking tips and recipes watching Cookin" with Carol, a half-hour cooking show she hosts. Her recipes are available in five self-published cookbooks, each based on a season of cooking shows. Scott Murray, host of the magazine's FYI Fort Worth television show, served as the emcee.
The Competition
There are three parts to the competition including a Chef Jeopardy, which comprises 20 percent of the final score with questions like "Which oil has the highest flash point?" (Answer: peanut oil). At the end of this portion of the competition, Staniford held a slight lead.
Blind tastings also make up 20 percent of the score. Our chefs are presented with a sauce and, after tasting it, must come up with a list of the ingredients that went into it. This year points were added for each ingredient correctly guessed. A new twist was introduced, subtracting a point for each incorrect guess. When presented with the prepared sauce, Youts noticed a "spice at the back of the throat and distinct earthy notes." The spice was from ancho chile powder. A few of our returning chefs had learned their lesson from past competitions, including easily overlooked items such as salt and water. At the end of this phase, Hunter and Rodriguez were tied with seven points each.
And, lastly the cooking challenge included a secret ingredient all the chefs had to incorporate into their dish. This night it was fresh pineapple. In previous competitions, all chefs worked with the same protein. This year, they drew to see which protein they would be working with, only finding out their fate one hour before competition. They were presented with the same stock ingredients to choose from as well as the same utensils and appliances and had 25 minutes to prepare and plate perfection. The judges then scored each dish for its creativity, presentation and, of course, flavor.
First Up
The first preliminary cooking competition pitted chefs Hunter, Rodriguez and Youts against one another.
Hunter was fighting smoke as he put the perfect hash marks on his pork chops, which ultimately became an attractive stacked presentation. Lamensdorf enjoyed the sautéed pineapple, and Richie thought the meat provided "a great Texas flavor."
Rodriguez was busy blending a sauce for his flank steak, which he offered grilled medium rare with a side of lightly tossed field greens. "My only disappointment is that the bold flavor of the chile overshadows the pineapple in this dish," said Steves. Lamensdorf dismissed the sauce saying, "It adds no flavor at all."
Youts drew striped bass for his protein and served it along with paper-thin slices of potato, plating his dish with the sauce on the bottom. Love was impressed by the contrast of salty bacon and sweet pineapple in the dish, but noticed the potato skins were curled rather than crispy. "I am really excited and surprised by the combination," Richie said. "My fish is cooked perfectly."
The second preliminary featured chefs Staniford, Felli and Olenjack.
Staniford's dish received rave reviews across the board. He prepared breasts of quail, but began his sauce right off the bat and it showed. "I am very pleased with the glazing sauce," Lamensdorf said. "The textures, presentation and combination of ingredients send this dish to the top." Love agreed, adding, "In the past three years of this competition, this is the best dish I've tasted."
Felli drew the basic chicken, but knocked it out of the park. His sauce was robust, made from sautéed shallots and grilled pineapple and was more like a chutney. The flavors were a hit. Steves was confused by the oil on the plate but thought it "brought out more of a pineapple punch." And, Lamensdorf said, "It shows a lot of technique. He boned it, sautéed it and sliced it."
Olenjack had the most interesting protein, rabbit, which he prepared beautifully braised along with a mixture of grilled corn and couscous, topped with a pineapple salsa. While Love thought it was the best-prepared meat of the evening, and Richie said, "I love the fresh corn and herbs in the dish," Lamensdorf and Steves thought it was missing something, perhaps a dressing of some kind to draw the dish together.
Moving On
After a tough deliberation, the judges made the call.
The four chefs moving on to the final round at Cendera Center, 3600 Benbrook Highway, Fort Worth, at 6 p.m. Aug. 2 are Staniford, Hunter, Felli and Youts.
Check out the September issue of the magazine as well as the next installment of FYI Fort Worth to find out who made it all the way to Top Chef status.
Or better yet - join us and see for yourself!
Tickets for the final are available at fwtx.com. Select Top Chef.
