The South Seashore Wine & Meals Competition celebrated its twenty fifth anniversary over the weekend with a cavalcade of Meals Community superstars and different A-list culinary expertise. As at all times, it was a weekend of scrumptious meals, copious alcohol and followers swooning over their favourite cooking-competition stars, who fortunately soaked up the love. It was additionally a weekend about rebirth, renewal and subsequent acts.
“For South Seashore this yr, I get to characterize my new restaurant that I simply opened in Dallas, which is Night time Rooster,” chef Shirley Chung informed Observer on Friday, 10 hours earlier than the Antonia Lofaso-led group of Chung, Stephanie Izard, Tobias Dorzon, Joe Sasto and Jonathon Sawyer received the pageant’s Match of Champions Dwell occasion. “Once I noticed the banners on the pageant, it’s best to have seen me chuckle, understanding that I’m again. I’m actually again.”
It was a outstanding second for Chung, who was recognized with Stage 4 tongue most cancers in 2024 and is now in remission. Two years in the past, she questioned if she was staring down the top of her life. She questioned if she would ever correctly style meals or prepare dinner in a restaurant once more. And now right here she was, serving lu rou pork stomach baos on the seashore, mugging for images with followers, dancing and headbanging on stage together with her chef pals at a raucous occasion hosted by Man Fieri.
“Nothing is stopping me now,” Chung, who received Meals Community’s inaugural season of Match of Champions in 2025, informed us earlier within the day. “I’ve much more alternatives developing. I’m residing fearlessly. I’m not saying no. I simply wish to stay my full life and expertise all the things. I’m in all probability going to be much more excessive than earlier than. Nothing’s holding me again.”
There have been plenty of celeb cooks reveling and holding nothing again on Friday night time.
“You able to get schmaltzy?” chef Eric Greenspan screamed on the Match of Champions Dwell crowd as he served schmaltzy grilled salami sandwiches along with his personal New Faculty American cheese. “We’re about to get fucking schmaltzy.”
Then the DJ performed “Bounce Round,” and Greenspan began doing the Operating Man. He was clearly right here to throw down as he gave friends a glimpse into the not-so-distant future.
Greenspan lately left the Tesla Diner to concentrate on opening his forthcoming Jewish deli, Mish, in Los Angeles this spring. Friday night time’s occasion was the primary public preview of Mish, and Greenspan was in a festive temper.
“Mish is my dream undertaking,” Greenspan, who has been fascinated with opening this deli for nearly a decade, informed Observer. “It’s my life’s objective. I imply, look, I extracted 99 % of the dopamine that I used to be going to extract from the Tesla Diner undertaking within the first three weeks. And after that, it was time to do that.”
The theme of the weekend, in some ways, was new beginnings. Dorzon, who’s operating Maryland’s Huncho Home once more after recovering from being shot 11 instances in a 2024 armed theft, beamed as he stood on stage alongside Chung. Earlier within the day at Bistro Collins inside Loews Miami Seashore, rapper Ja Rule (who was in Miami to carry out on the pageant’s Grand Tasting Village) confirmed off his bartending expertise as he poured his terrific new honey-infused Amber & Opal whiskey. In a while Friday night time, Kwame Onwuachi hosted the Las’ Lap Hyperlink Up occasion with Nina Compton and served curry mussel toast as a preview of Maroon, the Caribbean steakhouse he’s working to open on the Sahara casino-resort in Las Vegas this spring.
New energy couple Bobby Flay and Brooke Williamson made the rounds, beginning with a personal opening celebration on the W South Seashore, the place going to get a drink on the bar within the again meant strolling previous cooks like Chung, Greenspan, Izard, Michael and Bryan Voltaggio, Chris Oh, Eric Adjepong, Aaron Could, Burt Bakman, Michael White, Tim Love, Mattia Agazzi and Todd English.
It was that type of star-studded weekend throughout South Seashore as cooks bounced round to occasions and their favourite eating places. We joined Chung for an informal lunch at legendary Cuban restaurant Puerto Sagua on Friday. It become an impromptu Meals Community meetup as a result of Kevin Lee, Shota Nakajima, Nini Nguyen and Leah Cohen had additionally determined to go to Puerto Sagua. Many visiting cooks, together with Chung, Greenspan, Could, Izard and Mei Lin, additionally placed on bibs to eat on the iconic Joe’s Stone Crab over the weekend.
This was a weekend the place everybody was consuming nicely. Our favourite bites included chef Danny Grant’s Eight Bar burger and its accompanying creamy Szechuan pasta salad at Thursday night time’s Burger Bash; Wan’s chef Alex Kuk’s conventional sizzling & bitter soup at Thursday night time’s Asian Night time Market hosted by Jet Tila and Aarti Sequeira; Native chef Nyesha Arrington’s buttermilk fried rooster sandwich at Match of Champions Dwell; Jamaica Kitchen chef Anson Chin’s jerk pork and Kween Patty’s chef Daniel Lai’s wagyu/Scotch bonnet patties at Las’ Lap Hyperlink Up; and Lumpia Bros chef David Dualan’s pancit on the Grand Tasting Village.
This was a milestone yr for the South Seashore Wine & Meals Competition. However in some ways, it looks like issues are solely getting began for this pageant and the cooks who come right here to prepare dinner, celebration, see their besties, meet their followers and be reminded of the resilience of human beings.
“It’s all my pals right here, and this is among the happiest moments of my final two years,” Chung mentioned. “I’m prepared to take action rather more.”
