The Nashville Scene’s 16th annual Iron Fork competition took place Saturday in Centennial Park — this year as part of the Music City Food & Wine Festival, brought to you for the first time by Scene parent company FW Publishing.
As always, the competition featured four talented local chefs, who went head to head making dishes for our panel of judges (Mark Eggerding of US Foods, longtime Scene contributor Chris Chamberlain, Foodies of Nashville founder Sam Corley and Two Ten Jack's Jess Benefield) using a secret ingredient revealed moments before the competition began. This year’s secret ingredient, announced by Eggerding: Chef’s Line Mayonnaise. That revelation went down more smoothly with some of our competitors than others.
As our chefs cooked, three local mixologists competed in the drink-making portion of the night's festivities, hosted by Chris Mallon — owner of the Tennessee Whiskey Workshop and president of the U.S. Bartenders' Guild's Nashville chapter. The secret ingredient for that competition? Organic tamarind paste. Our competing mixologists were Harrison Deakin of Harriet's Nashville, Nick Dolan of Maiz de la Vida and Scott Perlowski of Golden Sound. Perlowski ultimately won that contest with his take on a Paper Plane, made using Tito's Vodka.
Chris Crary, Jess Lambert, Giovanna Orsino and Edgar Victoria will go head to head on April 26 at the Scene-presented event
With a one-hour time limit and staggered start times, chefs Chris Crary of 1 Kitchen, Jess Lambert of Etch and etc., Giovanna Orsino of Tutti da Gio and Edgar Victoria of Alebrije raided the pantry and got to work. Ultimately, each chef put together a dish that showcased his or her unique talents while also incorporating mayo: Lambert with a crab cake-centric dish with a mayo-based salad and cranberry-molasses drizzle and cauliflower puree; Crary with patatas bravas and steak with a walnut romesco sauce, kale and pickled shallots; Victoria with a "Mexican surf-and-turf," featuring a pipián sauce and a mayo-enhanced cilantro green goddess dressing; and Orsino with a Sicilian tuna tartare with a hot sauce, orange peppers, parsley and mayo.
In the end — with just one point separating first place from second — the 2025 Iron Fork winner was Lambert, who wowed the judges with her incorporation of mayo throughout the dish, as well as her team's ability to deep-fry outdoors. (No easy feat, our judges tell us.)
Iron Fork MCs Jerome Moore and yours truly auctioned off a dish apiece from each of our chefs, with proceeds going toward our charitable partners: The Nashville Food Project, Celebrate Nashville Cultural Festival and the Centennial Park Conservancy. Those proceeds totaled roughly $1,000.
A big thank-you to our sponsors, our charitable partners, our judges and our chefs. See photos of Saturday's action from Angelina Castillo and Hamilton Matthew Masters above.
