Tarrytown, N.Y.-based Phelps Hospital won Northwell Health's 13th annual Chef's Challenge.
To participate in the competition, Northwell hospitals submit a three-course meal. The top three are voted on by system employees before facing off in an in-person judging. Each hospital has 90 minutes to whip up their dishes, which requires use of preselected ingredients, and present it before a panel of judges. This year, the judges were Bruno Tison, Northwell's vice president of systems food services and corporate executive chef; Chief Medical Officer Jill Kalman, MD; and celebrity judge chef Marcus Samuelsson.
As part of the competition, at least one dish from each submission must be added to the hospital's patient menu.
This year, Phelps' Executive Chef Andrew Cain led his team of three to victory with these winning dishes:
- Appetizer – Golden beet and Brussels sprouts potstickers, roasted and raw rainbow beets, boro beet coulis, vegan horseradish mousse.
- Entrée – Black trumpet mushroom-crusted monkfish, spring onions, fava beans, garlic pesto puree, saffron and tomato emulsion.
- Dessert – Valrhona chocolate and prune Napoleon cake, dark chocolate ganache, Armagnac poached prune puree, cinnamon whipped cream, almond brittle.
The Phelps team will get a paid vacation to Napa. The second-place winners, Plainview/Syosset (N.Y.) Hospital's team, won a dinner for themselves and one guest, and the third-place winners, New York City-based Lenox Hill Hospital's team, received a goodie bag.
The cooking competition predates the "supercharged food transformation" at the system by five years, Sven Gierlinger, chief experience officer at Northwell, told Becker's. Seven years ago, Northwell decided to do something about its food, which some patients had described as unfit to feed a dog. The results have changed the reputation of hospital food from bland or unhealthy to fine-dining quality. The system uses its purchasing power to buy fresh food at the same price as processed food, allowing it to increase quality without extra costs. It has hired chefs with Michelin-star experience and has a waitlist of chefs wanting to work for the system. The changes have put some Northwell hospitals in the 90th percentile for food in a nationwide ranking, according to a May 2 news release from the system. Learn more about their food program here.