Category: People

Chef Cara Stadler won the America’s Culinary Cup in the final episode that aired last night on CBS. She takes home a $1 million prize. Parade magazine has the details of the dish that helped her win,

Certainly what helped set her apart was her final meal, which was something even Lakshmi hasn’t tasted before. “Cara made this beautiful dish of tea with some dumplings in it, which I had never seen before,” she says of the chef’s third and final presentation, which Stadler described on the show as a fusion of English and Asian cultures. 

Stadler was named a Best New Chef by Food & Wine in 2014 and was a Beard Awards nominee for Rising Star Chef of the Year in 2015. She formerly ran a set of restaurants in Portland and Brunswick along with her mother Cecile Stadler.

Referential has published an interview with Isaac MacDougal about Cocktail Mary.

The Press Herald has published an interview with Dan Zarin, the longtime restaurant critic who’s been writing The Breakfast Serial series for The Bollard for two decades.

How has Greater Portland’s breakfast scene evolved over the last two decades?
What has changed is its volume and variety. There are certainly dozens more places now, and a lot more variety of approaches to breakfast. You’re always going to have your diners and your standard hotel brunch places, but then you get places that show up doing something unexpected like (Balkan-inspired) Nom Café. Nobody’s doing that. Wakie Wakie’s (Thai fusion) in Westbrook is fun, and something I haven’t had before.

Milo Ryan-Humphrey from Another Round will be going to North Carolina later this month to compete in the US Brewers Cup Championship—one of 24 competitors from around the country.

As shared by Another Round, “Competitors spend months preparing a recipe with their own choice of specialty coffee. Preparing these recipes is an incredibly involved process involving trialing different types of filters, grind sizes, even temperatures and mineral content of the water. Milo will be competing with a washed-process Geisha from Panama expertly roasted by Onyx Coffee Lab.”

Ryan-Humphrey will be holding two demonstrations of the Brewers Cup program on March 22nd at Another Round that are open to the public—tickets are available online.

The latest episode of the Boulos Beats podcast features an interview with Luke Holden, co-founder of Luke’s Lobster.

Now operating 28 locations across the United States, with international locations in Singapore and Japan, Luke’s Lobster has become a globally recognized brand rooted in sustainability and quality. Luke discusses the importance of vertical integration, community relationships, and the strategic growth of the company’s consumer packaged goods business. The conversation also explores how Luke’s restaurant footprint and real estate strategy play a critical role in brand awareness and long-term growth.

The Press Herald reports that Georgia Macon is leaving her post as the executive pastry chef with the Prentice Hospitality Group. She’ll wrap up her employment at the end of October. Prentice operates Twelve, Evo, The Good Table in Cape Elizabeth and a number of other ventures including the Not a Bakery food truck.

Delicious Musings has published an article featuring Brian ‘Cat’ Catapang, the beverage director and co-owner of Magnus on Water in Biddeford. The article looks at the intersection of science, exploration, and creativity that are part of Catapang’s process.

Cat explains that he often pushes against the grain, testing the edge between expertise and discovery. For him, mistakes are essential—you have to make all the bad cocktails before you can make the good ones. Mastery of technique and flavor frees him to try combinations that make little sense on paper but reveal themselves in the glass. Balance, a word he finds as hollow as “smooth,” is not the goal. Drinks should evoke emotion: a nightcap can lean sweet or sharp and acidic, and both still achieve their own kind of equilibrium.

Read the full article here: A Maine Bartender Inspired by the Ocean