Fulton Market Culinary Competition To Support Local Family Farms

CHICAGO — A national culinary competition is coming to Chicago's West Side in early March. Cochon555 will feature more than one hundred prominent chefs, farmers, sommeliers, distillers, brewers and barkeeps.

Held March 3 in the city's Fulton Market neighborhood, the competition will host chefs who will compete to advance to the national finale, which will be held in Chicago on Sept. 15.

Tasked with the goal to win votes from 14 celebrity judges, chefs will have one week to prepare a 200 pound pig and present a “Judge’s Plate” scored on utilization, technique and overall flavor. The winner of the local competition is announced the Prince or Princess of Pork and advances to the national finale.

This year’s competing chefs include Chef Cory Morris of Nacional 27, Chef Jake Chappell of Vincent, Chef Chris Thompson of Coda di Volpe, Chef Brian Enyart and Chef Jennifer Jones Enyart of Dos Urban Cantina, and Chef Daniel Espinoza of Cantina Laredo.

Cochon555 is celebrating ten years during their 2019 nationwide tour. Every event is a fundraiser for Cochon555's sister charity, Piggy Bank, a start-up farm in Missouri that serves as a kickstarter for new family farms and a safety net for those in the wake of a disaster (flood, fire and disease).

The competition will be held at Morgan Manufacturing, 401 N. Morgan Street. General admission tickets start at $130. VIP tickets (early admission + exclusive access to sommelier competition and allocated wines and spirits) are $200. The event will run from 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. for general admission, and begin at 4 p.m. for VIP ticket holders.

The event will also feature a cheese bar curated by local cheesemakers, cocktail bars, pastry chefs, wine bars, butcher shops and a silent auction.

Running in tandem with the tour are a pair of internal competitions. Punch Kings presented by El Tesoro Tequila, a whole bottle spirit competition featuring some of the city’s top bartenders in a hand-crafted punch challenge and Somm Smackdown, a face-off of the nation’s top sommeliers pairing the best wine with heritage pig.

Cochon555 visits 15 major cities across the country each year, and has raised more than $1 million for charities, and paid more than $1 million directly to farmers, organizers said.

Grand Cochon, the tour's finale, will be held Sept. 15 in Chicago.