Taste of Burlington will be running this winter from February 20 – March 12, 2017 at 25 of Burlington’s best restaurants. To kick things off and provide diners an opportunity to experience a taste of what to expect, the Taste of Burlington held our launch event at the Burlington Performing Arts Centre on Tuesday night.
350 guests and media had an opportunity to meet many of our participating restaurateurs at their interactive food stations and try amazing cuisine. Our friends from Nickel Brook Brewery sampled their locally brewed craft beers, and Bodhi Bar kept it healthy with their cold pressed organic juice.
In what has become a tradition and a source of pride for our restaurants, we continued our friendly competition with Chefs vying hard for the title of “Best Taste” and “People’s Choice”. All guests were given the opportunity to vote for their favourite restaurant based on the cuisine they were serving at the launch. The popular vote would be crowned “People’s Choice” and “Best Taste would be determined by our panel of celebrity judges. Our judges, Colleen, LeeAnne, & Samantha (95.3 Fresh FM), and Agatha (OCTA) sampled the fare of the 20 launch restaurants and scored them based on taste, creativity and presentation. In this category the combined judge’s scores were used to determine the winner.
We heard all night from attendees was that this was the best launch event ever and that it was almost impossible to choose a winner. In the end, they did need to choose and in what can only be described as a tight race the winners were crowned.
We are excited to announce that Chef Andrew Nelson of Ivy Bar & Kitchen not only secured the “People’s Choice award but also the “Best Taste” with his crab & blue cheese crusted steak, locally raised flat iron steak, honey glazed brussel sprouts, grilled pepper, duck fat fried fingerling potatoes, roasted garlic and rosemary jus. In the “Best Taste” category only a quarter point separated the top three with the Queen’s Head Pub securing the runner up spot with their salted caramel cannoli served with a chai tea latte. In third place winner was one of our original Taste restaurants, the Downtown Bistro with a crispy jambalaya with a Creole tomato sauce.
The People’s Choice category had Chef Mitchell Lamb of Stone House Restaurant in the runner up position with a Moroccan lamb shank, slowly braised with dates & apricots, pearl couscous and a honey vanilla yogurt. The Purple Heather Pub closed out third place with their Guinness + beef pocket with caramelized onions and mushrooms accompanied by an arugula salad with ginger lime dressing, goat cheese and spice nuts.
A special thanks to Live and Local Music Series for providing us with spectacular entertainment from Mississippi Bends. Be sure to get your tickets for the series kick off this Friday. Also a big thank you to Burlington Green for helping us to reduce our environmental footprint.
If you want to experience all the great tastes of Burlington be sure to visit www.tasteofburlington.ca for all restaurants, prix fixe menus and pricing.
Photos: Look Local
Submitted by Linda Cvetanovic – Taste of Burlington, c/o Tourism Burlington
