Slideshow

Slideshow: Go Behind The Scenes As We Judge the Almost Famous Competition

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It’s the closest we’ve ever come to being a judge on Top Chef, and gave us more than a little insight into how each week on that TV show, skilled chefs can go wrong under the pressure of the clock. It was the first of ten regional semi-finals for the S. Pellegrino Almost Famous Chef Competition, whose finals will be held in Napa Valley in March, and we were one of twelve judges at Kendall College Wednesday night watching six young contestants, mostly from different cooking schools in the midwest, cook and present a dish representing their abilities and personality. The judges were actually in two teams; four of them judged technical aspects (such as sanitation practices) which we certainly wouldn’t have been qualified to judge. That left eight of us— four chefs, four media people— to evaluate the dishes for flavor and presentation, and to evaluate the young chefs for a personal vision and ability to present it articulately to us. The four chefs included Chef Jean Joho of Everest, who will go on to judge the finale in Napa, Chef Joncarl Lachman of HB Home Bistro who was actually the first national winner of the competition in 2002, Chef David Posey of Blackbird and Chef Chris Macchia of Coco Pazzo. Our behind the scenes slideshow starts below.

Contestants had two hours to prepare a dish, and were staggered by 15 minutes each. We were encouraged to ask questions and “turn up the heat,” so chefs Joho and Lachman do just that as first contestant Derek Warren from Fennville, Michigan begins.
The youngest competitor here at 21, Warren grew up on his family’s farm and spoke enthusiastically about the blueberries he’d brought from home for his lamb dish, which started by Frenching a rack of lamb, then chopping the scraps into a coarse sausage.
The only thing contestants were allowed to do ahead of time was lay out their mise-en-place, and Chef Joho pointed out how differently each one organized his or her station. This was contestant #2’s.
15 minutes after Warren, Robert Benson, who attends Le Cordon Bleu in Chicago, was allowed to begin. His chicken dish was a take on saltimbocca, which he said was the first dish he ever made for his wife. Here, he pounds chicken skin for the wrapper. Benson, who is diabetic, used agave sugar in his dish.
Next up was Jonathan Sanning, who goes to Sullivan University in Lexington, Kentucky. He also Frenched a rack of lamb to begin.
David Posey of Blackbird quizzes #4, Jennifer Kim from Kendall College. Her dish was duck and she brought in her own Polyscience sous vide machine, which she had just bought used on Ebay.
Contestant #6, Brian Hage of the Chef’s Academy in Indianapolis, preps chicken for his dish. (We didn’t really get a good picture of contestant #5, Jennifer Arnold, from the International Culinary School in Minneapolis, because by the time these last two were starting, we were mainly watching the earliest ones finish up.)
The full range of competitors hard at work.
As Derek Warren plated his dish with a smear of blueberry gastrique, we were ushered into the dining room.
Contestants were judged on their ability to present their dishes and talk about them, as well as on the dishes themselves. Here, Warren is challenged to name as many blueberry varieties as he can think of. He knew his blueberries; speaking for ourselves we rated his dish the highest, for its sophisticated mix of sweet, davory and acidic flavors, well-crafted beyond his years. We expect to hear more from him.
Benson’s chicken saltimbocca. Good flavors throughout (the parmesan crisp on top was outstanding) but the saltimbocca skin was rubbery and a little too heavy on chicken liver flavor.
As the only Southerner in the group, Sanning made terrific greens, and the parsnip-flour crust on his lamb was excellent— but as often happens on Top Chef, the lamb was underdone (and unevenly portioned, which didn’t help).
Jennifer Kim’s duck outclassed the rest of the field on chichi-dining presentation, but looks weren’t all it had going for it— everything on the plate was brightly flavored and executed well. We personally rated it just a point behind Warren’s. 
The competition hit a snag when Jennifer Arnold missed her window and was pushed back to the end of the line. Brian Hage came out next, and presented a sauteed chicken dish with a lemony sauce which was better in parts than as a whole. It was hard to know how well the salvage job that eventually came out from Arnold matched her original conception of the dish, but dry chicken and a weird assortment of accompaniments (raw figs and a prune reduction) just didn’t work for us on any level.
We turned in our score sheets and… 15 or 20 minutes later the winner was announced, Kendall College’s Jennifer Kim.
Slideshow: Go Behind The Scenes As We Judge the Almost Famous Competition