Hail to the Chefs! -- Heat 2 Wrap-up

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WNC Chefs Challenge: May 25

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Hail to the Chefs! -- Heat 2 Wrap-up

Heat #2 of the WNC Chef’s Challenge saw teams from two local restaurants that famously served the First Family during the Obamas’ recent Asheville vacation, and the results were unimpeachable. The contest was close, but the Grove Park Inn team, led by Chef Stephen Sauer, narrowly defeated Joe Scully’s team from one of Biltmore Village’s most popular eateries, The Corner Kitchen.

The downstairs dining room at The Flying Frog sold out for this cook-off with about 130 diners tasting and judging.

To view a gallery of the evening, please visit Camilla Calnan's website.

The night’s secret ingredient was local honey (10 pounds of it!) that WNC Asheville Wine & Food Festival founder Bob Bowles sourced from Greenlife Grocery. Where last week’s main ingredient, coffee, always had the potential of overpowering the meals, there proved to be a fine line with honey. It could very easily get crowded out by the flavors on the dish; or it could risk over-sweetening it.

Here’s the menu each team provided:

The Corner Kitchen
1. Southern fried seafood salad w/ oysters, calamari, and shrimp (honey was in the sauce)
2. Mushroom-dusted scallops on honey-roasted beet salad with turned potatoes
3. Smoked pork belly and pork tenderloin skewers on honey roasted sweet potato salad, served with honey-barbecue glaze

Grove Park Inn
1. Pistachio-encrusted turbot with wildflower-honey carrot sauce and ginger dahl
2. Smoked honey-brined duck breast with truffled cheese parsnip mash, green beans, and duck cracklings
3. White chocolate cardamom gelato, with honey-hazelnut crisp and mango and raspberry coulis

Grove Park Inn’s offerings were on the safe side, though their duck breast scored the most points of the night.

In my opinion, The Corner Kitchen’s standout dish was the pork belly and tenderloin skewers. It offered a variety of tastes (sweet, smoky, and even a little spicy) with just as many textures in every bite. The team may have faired better in the overall scoring had Scully traded in his second seafood dish for a strong dessert. After all, spending the night, looking for subtle hints of honey in savory dishes just leaves the crowd begging to be reminded what honey, in all its nuanced glory really tastes like.

In the end, only about 300 points separated the Grove Park Inn and The Corner Kitchen teams. That’s a very slim margin for these equally matched competitors considering each team could only score about 9,000 points.

In the end, Corner Kitchen took the loss in good spirits, and Grove Park Inn will move on to round two where they will compete against the of winner next week’s challenge. June 1, Pomodoro’s Italian and Greek Café will take on The Admiral. Reservations are filling up fast for these events, so don’t forget to reserve your table as quickly as possible.

Special thanks to Bluewater Seafood and Celtic Sea Salt for providing ingredients to the meals.