The Madison Food and Wine Show took place this weekend.  An annual event, this show features food, wine, demonstrations, exhibits, and other food and beverage related items.  Perhaps one of the more entertaining aspects of this show is the Dueling Chef Competition.

Chefs representing Madison Originals restaurants compete ala Iron Chef for the title of Madison’s Culinary Conqueror.  A full double kitchen is set up on the exhibit hall floor, with tables and bleachers in place for spectators.  Five heats and a final battle make up the competition.

This year I was asked to be a judge for the competition, and I have to say, it was a blast.  I was representing one of our other websites, Madison Dining Online.  For those of you unfamiliar with Madison Dining Online, it’s a local area restaurant guide with listings, reviews, and a blog.  It gets hundreds of thousands of hits a year, and has been in existance for 11 years, focusing on the Madison area dining scene.  So when I was asked to participate as a judge in the Dueling Chef Competition, I didn’t hesitate to agree!

The competition is emceed by two of the areas top restaurant owners,  Patrick O’Halloran from Lombardino’s and The Old Fashioned, and Robert Von Rutenburg from Nautigals, Mariners Inn and Captain Bills, seen in this picture with Chef Charles Lazzareschi of Ovations.  These are some of the best restaurants that you can find in Madison.

I judged a semi-final heat between Charles Lazzareschi of Ovations and Angelo Cattaneo of The Blue Marlin.  The crowd gathered early, and all the audience seats were full to capacity.  It was standing room only as I took my seat at the judges table.

The unveiling of the secret ingredient to be used was dramatically delayed by the fact that it was stuck in traffic.  You see, it was coming from Whole Foods, and there was a UW football game that had let out shortly before the heat was to start.  And so the duel was delayed somewhat by the ensuing traffic jam.  Once it worked it’s way through the traffic, the platters were unveiled to reveal some pretty spectacular cuts of veal.This was a relief.  My greatest fear was not that the secret ingredient would be something I disliked.  Instead, I was certain that it was going to be bananas.  I am frightfully allergic to bananas, and I wasn’t sure how I would have dealt with that as the battle theme.  Thankfully, I did not need to find out.

The competition itself went by very fast, with the chefs and their sous chefs working quickly to prepare two dishes featuring the veal in a mere 30 minutes.

In the end, four truly wonderful dishes were prepared, seen below. The judges were surprisingly aligned in their assessments, and though scores were not compared during the competition, the final points were identical from all of the celebrity judges at the table. The Blue Marlin team took the heat and moved on to the finals, to be held today.

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10.21.2007 by Irene Category Events