Highlights included the Friday night banquet, at which 281 people dined on showcase fare from 20 restaurants and 20 wineries. Long after the banquet ended, the party continued at the bar (with chefs and sommeliers and staff kicking back) long into the wee hours.
Saturday night’s banquet brought in 219 people, who enjoyed a five-course meal from five restaurants, with two wines per course. Highlights included halibut with a memorable green tomato jam and stuffed zucchini flowers from chef James Laird of Serenade in Chatham; a wonderfully moist and flavorful Guinea hen with red wine and olives from chef David Waltuck of Chanterelle in Manhattan; and whimsical yet yummy chocolate cigars (served in actual wooden cigar boxes) from chef Douglas Rodriguez of Alma de Cuba in Philadelphia. A first-course heirloom tomato and cantaloupe salad with baby basil (the tomatoes alone cost more than the ingredients for any other course) was a snore, visually and on the palate, but you can’t win them all.
The seven afternoon cooking demonstrations were well attended. With typical flair, despite being up the previous night till four a.m. (see above), chef David Burke of the Fromagerie in Rumson showed how to make his justly-celebrated hot and angry lobster, as finger-licking an appetizer as any I know of.
The grass roots (despite being corn fed) hit of the weekend was the Burger Summit, held in the Grand Summit parking lot Sunday evening and hosted by author and food blogger Josh Ozersky (Citysearch, The Feedbag). About twenty restaurants, most from Manhattan, a few from Jersey, vied for top honors in the categories of slider, classic burger, gourmet burger, and specialty burger.
Under a big tent with stand-up tables for attendees, a team of judges sat at a long head tale and blind tasted all the offerings out of numbered styrofoam boxes. Judges included members of the Burger of the Month Club (recently profiled in the New York Times) and the Kansas City Barbecue Society, Off The Broiler blogger Jason Perlow, and Pat La Frieda and Mark Pastore, whose upscale meat company, Pat La Frieda Wholesale Meat Purveyors, supplied the raw material, in various blends, for the competition. (La Frieda recently moved its huge operation from NYC to newly constructed quarters near the Jersey side of the Lincoln Tunnel.)
A huge and happy crowd migrated from open-air tent to open-air tent, scarfing up generous samples and guzzling down excellent beer from Jersey brewer River Horse–a lager, an ale, and the bracing Hop Hazard.
Then the skies darkened, the winds kicked up madly, and the clouds unleashed waves of rain, then flat-out hammering hail. The crowd took cover under all available tents, especially the capacious judges’ tent. Some said the sound of hailstones pelting the taut fabric reminded them of fireworks, others of being trapped inside an electric popcorn machine.
Undaunted by the din, the burly, bearded Ozersky grabbed a thick burger from the tent of restaurant Txikita (Manhattan) and ran into the open. Dashing back and forth in front of the crowd huddled under the judge’s tent, he ripped off furious bites and thrust his burger-holding fist defiantly into the air. Amid the smack of hailstones, he exhorted the crowd to carry on–the eating and the judging would not be deterred by such puny punishment as falling cocktail ice. The message was clear: Hail no, we won’t go!
Ivan Ruiz, owner of the excellent Summit wine shop The Wine List and indefatigable organizer of the festival, gave thanks that Summit inspectors had required him to rent tents that could withstand winds of up to 100 mph. "They cost more," he said the next day, "but they were worth every penny."
For many fressers on hand, myself included, the most memorable burger was the big beauty proffered by The Little Owl (Manhattan), partly because it was relatively simple. A thick, dome-shaped patty bursting with beefy flavor, two slices of melted American cheese (which normally I loathe), bacon, and a unique bun, with a lightly textured surface and soft interior that Ozersky likened to pizza dough. I came back for seconds, and even thirds. New York restaurant consultant Ed Schoenfeld, also on hand, admitted that he too was partial to The Little Owl.
But The Little Owl was not one of the winners, because the competition seemed to be less about patties than about toppings. Caramelized onions were ubiquitous, and what food don’t they make taste better? (Desserts, probably.) Equally in evidence was sticks of applewood-smoked bacon, and what don’t they make taste better? (Desserts, no, as witness trendy chocolate-covered bacon.) Then there were various cheeses, lettuce, tomato, and the mushroom duxelle cream sauce with foie gras that BGR heaped on their burger in the gourmet category.
In the end, Belmar’s Boom won best slider, Stand (Manhattan) was named best classic burger, Wildwood Barbecue won the gourmet category, and BGR, of Bethesda, Maryland, took home the specialty prize for their "Burger Wellington." All worthy. In fact, I’d like to eat all these burgers again.
Which brings us to next year. Ruiz has already met with people from the Grand Summit Hotel. There almost certainly will be a Wine & Food Festival II, though whether at the Grand Summit or at a larger hotel remains to be seen. Year Two will probably be easier to recruit than Year One–some New York chefs declined to participate, or came aboard only after others of a certain stature had taken the leap.
"Chefs asked me, ‘Is New Jersey ready for us? We don’t want to do things here because we think they don’t understand what we’re about,’" says organizer Ruiz. "Afterwards, participants said, ‘I guess New Jersey was ready for us.’"
Touché.