May 24, 2022 – Can anyone even remember a time before reality TV? Or before weird and wacky game show competitions were not streaming out at us on all platforms? Despite how cliche these all seem to us now, there is one that rises to the top and deserves a bunch of credit for originality and entertainment value, before all the rest joined the pack.
The original Iron Chef series premiered on Fuji Television in 1993, the idea being a timed, thematic cooking battle in which guest chefs would challenge the resident Iron Chefs. If you ever were a fan, you know how fun the drama and action-packed cooking show-downs were to watch. The show ended in 1999, but then the United States got involved by first launching the failed Iron Chef USA in 2001, followed by the Food Network’s Iron Chef America and all those Bobby Flay shenanigans ever since.
Well, now we can play out our own cooking battle fantasies. One of our local chefs, Gus Trejo of the Jack O’Neill Restaurant & Lounge at the Dream Inn in Santa Cruz, has recently launched an Iron Chef (although he probably can’t technically call it that) competition package.
“It is something that me and chef Tim Wood did at Carmel Valley Ranch,” Trejo explains. Apparently, during the time that Trejo worked there they put on these competitions a ton, but didn’t really publicize them. When chef Tim left, the concept stopped. But Trejo is excited to relaunch the idea in his current role as executive chef at the Dream Inn.
Families and groups can book Dream Inn’s new Iron Chef competition where teams will cook against each other for the Iron Chef Title. Each team creates one dish with one hour of preparation time. Teams will only be provided with staples such as flour, spices, eggs and butter and each team will be challenged with a secret ingredient. Members of the Jack O’Neill restaurant’s culinary team will judge the final dishes. Dinner and drinks are included with the package, and it is available to book by anyone from the general public (without guest rooms) June through August through the hotel’s regular reservation system.
“In Covid times, so many regular folks became chefs…it creates bragging rights,” says Trejo, so it felt like a good time to launch the idea with all these new “professional” home cooks.
So the concept is a cooking competition with a secret ingredient. But customization is a big element too. Some ideas could be a cookie decorating competition for kids, where they get blank sugar cookies to decorate and the winner gets a prize. Or you could add components, like mixology as a third element, with spirits, garnishes, ice, mixers etc., all of it falling into the ultimate concept of choice. “Basically, what we’re doing is creating a theme,” says Trejo. Also customizable is the level of intensity in the judging (probably a good thing to scale down on when little kids are involved.)
When you call to book the competition, you are basically booking the entire ballroom that is located above the restaurant and the entire set up (tables with stoves, individual stations, tools and all the basics that make up a kitchen). You can call and request a theme, but the Dream Inn team will come up with the challenge, the secret ingredient, and all the set up. The judges are generally people from the Dream Inn culinary team, like chef Trejo or another chef, and other staff members. But if a family or team member isn’t participating, they can be a judge too. You can also order custom aprons, cook toques and trophies if you want to really get into it.
Participants are broken up into teams, with 3-4 people per team. The group size is minimum of 8, maximum 32. (He’s done one with 200 people from Google before). The timeline is a 60 minute competition (with grace periods and time to ask questions built in as well) with the first ten minutes for gathering ingredients and deciding what to cook.
Generally, the format is to prepare one entree and one appetizer, both judged on appearance, taste, collaboration and overall organization. Chefs are there, but only to consult. Or almost like referees. “We try to keep you safe, show you the proper techniques but we won’t interfere in the actual competition,” Trejo explains.
The first competition took place in late March with three families and a plant-based cooking challenge. The inspiration for the secret ingredient (cauliflower) came from what fresh produce was available that week. The idea is to have one of the farms drop off the restaurant’s entire order at the ballroom space up. Then they add a pantry and build out the satellite kitchen, with a kitchen island and all the tools. “Part of the challenge is only to be able to use what’s in that room,” he says. For instance, “we might leave out a mixing bowl as a monkey wrench…the idea is to have fun with it and also create a challenge.”
The way they incorporate local farms “is unique,” says Trejo, of their direct sourcing of local produce from 19 different farms from Big Sur to Pescadero.
“We will try to plan these events around our delivery days so that contestants can actually meet the farmers,” he says.
“The focus is to feature this produce, that’s why I really like to make the theme plant-based,” he says, “so that part of the challenge is for people to be presented with all these different heirloom vegetables that they may not see at the grocery store. Which makes the competition educational too, and also sensory. Taste it, feel it, look at it, use all of your senses to try to create a dish.”
Families, especially, can take that experience with them Trejo hopes. Perhaps after the competition they can now identify this new ingredient out at the store and broaden their cooking horizons a bit.
To book the Iron Chef competition, call (831) 426-4330 or toll-free at (866) 774-7735.
About the author
Amber Turpin is a freelance food and travel writer based in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
