February 15, 2025
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Rival chefs find camaraderie in ‘Ultimate’ quest

Ryan Campbell picked up the phone recently and got a bit of a shock. On the line, the head chef at River Drivers Restaurant in Millinocket recalled last week, was a man who claimed to be a state health inspector.

OK, Campbell thought, it has to be a prank – probably a college buddy who was calling to scare him in the days leading up to the 2008 Ultimate Chef competition. Yes, the phone call was a joke, but the prankster wasn’t whom Campbell was expecting.

Instead, it was Douglass Winslow, the head chef at Lucerne Inn and Campbell’s rival in the second round of the Ultimate Chef contest.

Winslow’s call was all good-natured fun, which was certainly how Campbell took it. The two chefs have struck up a friendship during the competition. In fact, they and their wives shared an Ultimate Chef ticket, so each couple had a chance to taste the other’s menu.

“I’d never met him before [the Ultimate Chef competition] but I feel like I’ve known him my whole life,” Campbell said. “He did give in too easy [on the prank call], though.”

Campbell emerged as the winner of what was the second round of competition, which means he will move on to the final round to face 2007 champion Roger Gelis of Opus in Bangor. Gelis, who won the first round last month, will cook for diners on Sept. 15. Campbell’s turn will come Sept. 22. The winner will earn the overall title.

The Ultimate Chef competition, which for the second year is run by the Greater Bangor Convention & Visitors Bureau, pits local chefs against one other as they create a four-course menu – appetizer, soup or salad, entree and dessert – using one common ingredient in each course. The ingredient is kept secret from the diners until they arrive at the restaurant.

Diners rate the meal based on its originality, taste and presentation. Neither chef took part in the voting during their dinner in the other’s restaurant.

For the Lucerne-River Drivers round, the secret ingredient was orange. Although there were a few similarities, each chef found different ways to capitalize on the ingredient’s versatility.

“It goes so many ways,” Winslow said. “The idea was to use it a little bit differently and make it fairly simple, but don’t overdo it.”

Winslow started with sea scallops seared in orange- and rosemary-infused olive oil served with three different sauces, a saffron cream, a basil cream and a white truffle sauce. Next up was a salad of smoked Cornish hen, native greens and tangerine sections. The greens, he said, came from his daughter’s farm in Farmington.

After an intermezzo of orange-rhubarb sorbet, Winslow served a pork loin stuffed with quinoa with the dramatic touch of carving the pork in front of the diners.

“Doing the pork loin that way was new for me,” Winslow said. “I have stuffed pork loins before but not on the bone and then cut it. That was a bit of a challenge as far as having it ready to go and preparing it so you can get out there and cut it in the dining room.”

Campbell also started with scallops, which was marinated in citron and served with a blood orange coulis – more on that version of orange later – followed by a salad of beets with an orange vinaigrette and orange zest. The two-part main course was Chilean sea bass with kumquat chutney and tangerine fennel hash, and beef tenderloin topped with orange truffle butter.

Desserts were very different, too. Winslow made a kumquat and apple steamed pudding served with a butter-cream sauce. Campbell offered a trio of sorbets, including tangerine, orange cranberry and blood orange, each served in a small flavored sugar cone shaped like a bowl.

Campbell’s use of blood orange was, in a way, a minor victory for him. Blood oranges are hard to find at a reasonable price this time of year, both chefs said. Winslow said he had scrapped an original plan to use blood oranges in his salad but Campbell was thinking ahead. He picked up some blood oranges a few weeks ago, squeezed the juice and froze it to use in his appetizer and dessert.

“It was good planning on my part, but it would have been great to use [the actual fruit] because it’s got such a great color,” Campbell said.

Both chefs also incorporated orange around their dining rooms. At the Lucerne Inn, diners used orange cloth napkins. On the tables at the River Drivers, vases with orange gerbera daisies had kumquats on the bottom.

Although Campbell is the one moving on in the competition, bothchefs will likely have fond memories of the experience.

“He’s a guy who really loves food,” Winslow said before he knew the outcome. “If I’m going to lose to somebody, I want to lose to somebody who enjoys doing food.”

Tickets for the Ultimate Chef Competition are $90 per person for both meals. To purchase tickets for the final round, call the Greater Bangor Convention & Visitors Bureau at 947-5205 or go to www.visitbangormaine.com.

jbloch@bangordailynews.net

990-8287


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