Celebrity Judges Name Dan Rooney's Cafe & Bar Champion Of Food Festival Burger Battle

Top culinary talent faced off in a battle of the burgers at the annual 2012 Greenwich Food & Wine Festival hosted by Serendipity Magazine. The first-ever Burger Battle event promises to be the start of a long tradition for the three-day gourmet festival featuring talent from Fairfield and Westchester Counties.
Celebrity chefs of national fame sat in judgment of some of the area's most popular establishments, including The Cos Cobbler, Darien Social, The Ginger Man, My Favorite Place and the ever-popular Shake Shack. But it was a restaurant that has yet to even open its doors to the public that blew the celebrity judges away. The judges unanimously declared Dan Rooney's Cafe and Bar the champion of the first annual Greenwich Food & Wine Festival Burger Battle.

Dan Rooney's Cafe & Bar, one of two new restaurants coming to Empire City Casino at Yonkers Raceway, devoured the competition. Executive chef, Christopher Lee and chef de cuisine, Julia Doyne pushed the proverbial culinary envelope, serving up an aged beef burger with brie, tangy onions, watercress, tomato, and honey black pepper aioli on a brioche bun. The flavorful combination kicked off an inquisition by the judges into the specific ingredients and meat grind, with several professing that their well-developed palates surely tasted the decadence of foie gras in the burger.
Chef Lee appeased the judges by detailing the team's culinary secrets, ensuring them that it was the tangy onions, grilled and then pickled with red wine vinegar, combined with the aged brie that they were mistaking for foie gras. He went on to divulge that the watercress bitter greens helped to balance the sweetness in the honey black pepper aioli, which served to not only temper the aged brie but also bring some heat to the burger.

The celebrity judges (pictured) included Graham Elliot of MasterChef, Iron Chef America and Top Chef Masters; Joe Campanale, restaurateur, sommelier and owner of dell'anima, L'Artusi and Anfora of NYC; Duff Goldman, pastry chef, television personality and executive chef of Baltimore-based Charm City Cakes; Tim Allen, Emmy Award winning host of the hit series Chopped on the Food Network; John Stage, founder of famed New York Dinosaur Bar-B-Que; Amanda Baer, Serendipity Magazine food editor, and Patch.com's best burger poem contest winner, Susan Franco.
"This was our inaugural Burger Battle and the judges, audience and chefs really enjoyed it," said Molly Galterio, Assistant Publisher of Serendipity Magazine. "This will undoubtedly become a much anticipated tradition for the festival. Dan Rooney's won by a landslide and it was well-deserved. The celebrity judges agreed that this burger really blew them away."

"It was great to win the Burger Battle, especially by a judging panel of this caliber," said Chef Christopher Lee, Executive Chef of Dan Rooney's Cafe and Bar at Empire City Casino. "Dan Rooney's is about elevating pub food to the next level. I don't buy into the idea that a bar menu has to rely heavily on fried food and low-brow snacks. Here we take traditional pub classics and incorporate seasonal ingredients and layer flavors to keep things fresh and new. I use a lot of the same techniques used in fine-dining kitchens, but keep the dishes comforting and approachable," Lee continued.

In addition to the beefed up burger, Dan Rooney's also got raved reviews on the corned beef and cabbage that was also served at the festival.
"We make a great corned beef," claimed Chef Lee. "We braise it for 8 hours so it's super tender. We choose very fatty briskets. The cabbage is pretty standard...really tender cabbage that is cooked with herbs and spices. But the killer ingredient that puts it over the