Veronica Vega and Damian Escalante
On Monday night October 20th, Damian Escalante, Sous-Chef of Dolores in Brooklyn, and Veronica Vega, home cook and Tehuacán, Puebla native, were named the winners of New York City’s first Chiles en Nogada Cooking Competition, hosted by Brooklyn-based non-profit organization Mixteca and sponsored by Del Maguey Single Village Mezcal.
The event, which celebrated the end of chiles en nogada season in Mexico, took place at Platform by the James Beard Foundation and featured a rising star restaurant chefs and generational home cooks showcasing their creative interpretations of chiles en nogada. Each dish was inspired by fa specific expression of Del Maguey Single Village Mezcal.
The winning dishes — Escalante’s Chile Relleno Corazón, inspired by Tobalá mezcal, and Vega’s Chiles en Nogada, inspired by Jabalí mezcal, were selected by a panel of esteemed judges: Inés Anguiano, test kitchen manager at Bon Appetít; Jaeki Cho, co-founder of Righteous Eats, a media platform dedicated to spotlighting immigrant- and minority-owned restaurants; Chef Rick Martinez, James Beard Award–winning cookbook author of Mi Cocina: Recipes and Rapture from My Kitchen in Mexico and Salsa Daddy; and chiles en nogada master chef/restaurateur Ricardo Muñoz Zurita, who serves the dish as his Azul Condesa, Azul Histórico, and Azulísimo in Mexico City; and Litoral in Cancún.
Click here to enjoy Escalante’s recipe for Chile Relleno Corazón
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