Top Chefs Compete for $10,000 at Arts, Beats & Eats

There’s a new “Eats” component to Arts, Beats & Eats this year: The Duel, an extreme cook-off with four of the area’s tops chefs competing for $10,000 in cash prizes on the Mirepoix Cooking School International Stage.

The event is sponsored by , which is an affiliate of Royal Oak’s .

“I’ve watched a lot of cooking shows on TV,” said Tom Violante Jr., owner of Holiday Market and Mirepoix Cooking School. “I’ve always thought ‘We should do this!’”

The cooking contest challenges chefs to come up with a dish based on a secret ingredient. Each cook is provided with a list of pantry ingredients and a Holiday Market gift card to make other purchases prior to the competition.

Eight Metro Detroit chefs competed in rounds one and two of The Duel at the Mirepoix Cooking School on Aug. 22.

“We had to have the first rounds at the cooking school because we needed all the space,” Violante said. Mirepoix could accommodate all eight chefs in its own kitchen.

The first challenge was to create two dishes in 60 minutes with the secret ingredient of corn. The second challenge was to create three dishes with cherries.

The chefs competing included:

• Paul Maxon, , Royal Oak
• Reva Bell-Constantin, Joe's Produce & Gourmet Market, Livonia
• Marc Djozlija, Wolfgang Puck MGM Grand, Detroit
• Raven Crane, The Majestic Café, Detroit
• Steven Grostick, , Novi
• Brandon Wolschleger, Table 5, Northville
• Jim Bologna, , Birmingham
• Zach Stotz, Atlas Global Bistro, Detroit

“The competition was really intense,”  Violante said, “but all the chefs agreed it was easier to create three dishes in 90 minutes than two in 60 minutes.”

Moving forward in The Duel are chefs Stotz, Djozlija, Bell-Constantin and Wolschleger.

You can watch the final eliminations at Arts, Beats & Eats on Friday and Sunday. The schedule is as follows:

Mirepoix Cooking School International Stage

on Sixth Street at South Lafayette

Friday at 2:30 p.m.

Chefs Stotz, Djozlija, Bell-Constantin and Wolschleger will face off in a 90-minute elimination in which two chefs will be cut. The chef who fares better of the two eliminated is the winner of $1,000.
 The two chefs with the highest scores will advance to the final round Sunday.

Sunday at 2:30 p.m.

The winner will receive $7,000 in cash while the runner-up gets $2,000.