As the snow fell on the grounds of the Crystal Springs Resort Saturday afternoon, 60 people, 5 restaurants and many, many bottles of Napa Cellars wine, met to decipher Who is the Mac & Cheese Boss of New Jersey in a competition sponsored by Napa Cellars and Trinchero Family Estates. As you probably know, the competition started here on JerseyBites in late January. Restaurants from all over New Jersey threw their toques into the ring with the hopes of becoming crowned Mac & Cheese Boss. Public votes selected five candidates to move on to the cook-off at the NJ Wine & Food Festival.
The five finalist were:
Morris Tap & Grill in Randolph with their Crisp Manage Braised Pork Slab Cotswood Mac & Cheese.
Crystal Tavern and their Sous Vide Buffalo Short Rib Mac & Cheese with local artisinal cheese and bone marrow gratin.
Cielo Restaurant in Fairfield with his Hide & Seek Mac & Cheese
Tipperary Pub in Lakehurst with their Irish Mac & Cheese
Nicole’s 10 in Randolph with Chef Masey’s Lobster Mac & Cheese
Napa Cellars Winemaker, Joe Shirley, kicked off the event with an explanation of the wines being poured. The room was full of excitement as everyone spread out to try all five entries before casting a vote for their favorite.
After all the sipping and nibbling, the winner by popular vote was Nicole’s 10 with their Lobster Mac & Cheese. Here, Chef Masey is being presented with a magnum of Napa Cellars Chardonnay by Joe Shirley and Daniel Tindal, Regional Manager New Jersey, Trinchero Family Estates.
Second place went to Crystal Tavern and Third place to Cielo Restaurant.
Congratulations to all of our finalists. A great time was had by all as you can tell from our photo album on Facebook.
