Courtesy of: Tina Escobedo
Photos courtesy: Rosalie Klein
The first night of the Aruba Food, Wine & Art Festival, held annually at the Westin Resort & Casino, Aruba, introduced a new event to the festival—Aruba’s first Iron Chef Competition. A sold out crowd of nearly 200 guests filled the resort’s Grand Ballroom Thursday evening to watch three of Aruba’s top chefs—Scott Scheurman from Aqua Grill, Urvin Croes from White Modern Cuisine, and Erwin Husken from Screaming Eagle—compete for the top Iron Chef title. Each chef received a “mystery basket” of four items with a predetermined amount of time to prepare an appetizer, main course, and dessert. They presented their creations to a panel of culinary professionals who judged the dishes based on a number of criteria, including technique, taste, presentation, and best utilization of the mystery basket items.
Guests enjoyed a thrilling show of culinary talent under pressure, cheering on the three chefs as they hustled to create their masterpieces as time ticked away. The competition was close, and the judges had nothing but respect for their fellow culinary comrades who took on the difficult challenge under the watchful eye of 200 spectators and a camera crew capturing the event on big screens set up in the ballroom. At the end of the evening, Chef Urvin Croes came out on top, and will go down in the history books as Aruba’s first Iron Chef. The evening also saw Raymond Kok, from Pepia Est., named as Iron Sommelier of the evening.
