Shiitake in the afternoon A Nickel City Chef battle between JJ Richert and Carmelo Raimondi By Margaret M. Toohey and Tim Toohey; photos by kc kratt NCC co-hosts Bert Gambini and Mike Andrzejewski. NCC JJ Richert. Challenger Carmelo Raimondi. The early March opening of Heat Waves in a Swamp: The Paintings of Charles Burchfield at the Burchfield Penney Art Center was an exhilarating prelude to our attendance just days later at Nickel City Chef VI, where two local chefs demonstrated how the craft of cooking can, in expert hands, become an art. NCC is in its second year of holding periodic kitchen duels in which one of four permanent “Nickel City Chefs” defends his or her reputation against a local challenger. The four defending chefs are Adam Goetz, chef/owner of Sample; Paul Jenkins, executive chef and managing partner of Tempo; JJ Richert, chef/owner of Torches; and Krista VanWagner, chef/owner of Curly’s Grill. Meticulously organized by producer Christa Seychew, owner and operator of Feed Your Soul, a Buffalo-based culinary event production company, the competition is held in Artisan Kitchens and Baths, located in a restored historic warehouse on Amherst Street. The studio is outfitted with two state-of-the-art kitchens, equivalent to or better than those used in many Food Network chef smack-downs. The show’s host, Bert Gambini of WBFO, and roving commentator Mike Andrzejewski of Seabar bring an added degree of professionalism to the events. NCC attendee John Hailey, local wine connoisseur and representative of wine importer the Opici Import Company, remarks that the level of expertise exhibited by the contestants in many ways exceeded the usual Food Network fare. The format for the competition involves the preparation of three dishes within a one-hour time frame using the same secret ingredient in all three—much like the original Iron Chef and its stateside equivalent Iron Chef America. Judges then grade the dishes on a variety of criteria including taste, presentation, and use of the secret ingredient. The audience of about 200—the events routinely sell out—sits close to the roped-off kitchen area. The crowd is encouraged to lend support to their favorite chef, enjoy a catered buffet from Joe’s Deli on Hertel Avenue, have a glass or two of wine, or browse the floors of Artisans Kitchens and Baths. (There are always knowledgeable but low-key sales associates on site.) On March 7, the challenger to Nickel City Chef JJ Richert was Carmelo Raimondi of Carmelo’s Restaurant of Lewiston. The three-judge panel consisted of comedienne Kristen Becker; hospitality consultant John Bourdage, host of Wine, Wit & Wisdom; and Don Salamone, executive chef at Philadelphia’s “gastro-dive,” Johnny Brenda’s Tavern. The secret ingredient was dried shiitake mushrooms from Green Heron Growers, a certified organic farm operated by Steve and Julie Rockcastle in Panama, New York. The chefs, working quickly but deliberately, each with just one assistant, produced three dishes: an appetizer, a soup or complementary dish, and an entrée. Chef Raimondi, who has long been a leading proponent of the local food movement, started out with a ricotta gnocchi employing shiitake mushrooms as a powder along with a sage butter sauce. He followed up with a roasted tomato and shiitake mushroom dish. His entrée of pork tenderloin encrusted with ground pork and mushrooms was an obvious hit with the judges. Carmelo noted that the tomatoes in the second dish were sourced locally from H2 Grow and that the pork was from T-Meadow Farm of Lockport, where they raise heritage, pasture-roaming pigs. Chef Richert started out with a shiitake mushroom soup over sweetened crab meat garnished with chicken feet cooked in what the chef called “Buffalo style.” His second dish, a mushroom roulade with taso ham sautéed in duck fat, featured a spring roll wrap inside an imaginative white bread cover. He followed with the day’s pièce de résistance: a prime aged rib-eye coated with a rub of ground shiitakes, cocoa, coffee, and paprika—infused, ever so gently, with smoke from a portable smoker before delivery under glass to the judges’ table. The final tally had Chef Richert edging out Chef Raimondi by the thinnest of margins, a score of 53 points to 52. But the real winners, to our mind, were those of us who got to witness two chefs doing something they obviously loved and—to no one’s surprise—doing it exceedingly well. Margaret M. Toohey and Tim Toohey are two of Spree’s Foodies. SUBSCRIBE NOW Back to the Table of Contents Back to Top