Bear Tooth hosts Vegan Chef Challenge awards

Bear Tooth Theaterpub hosted the Anchorage Vegan Chef Challenge awards ceremony on April 6. A full list of the awards can be found on the AnchorageVegan Chef Challenge Facebook page.

The Northern Light interviewed chefs from restaurants and award winners at the awards ceremony.

Rachel Hull is the executive chef of Bear Tooth Theaterpub and Grill. The Theaterpub won awards for best pizza and best dessert, while the Grill won an award for best starters.

Hull said that Bear Tooth has participated in the challenge in prior years. She said a big focus for this year’s menu was adopting fully plant-based foods and avoiding meat substitutes.

Hull said the black bean burger was popular with diners, and will be featured on the Grill’s summer menu — rotating out with their Vegan Porto Burger in the winter.

The beet “poke” salad was a dish that Hull described as being full of beautiful flavor and color.

The award-winning dessert developed by the pastry team was a cashew-based salted caramel ice cream torte that will be featured on the permanent menu.

Hull said the Vegan Chef Challenge was a good reminder for chefs to think inclusively and use all available ingredients. Hull doesn’t consider putting a focus on plant-based meals to be confining, but instead an opportunity for inspiration.

“Plants are such a huge part of what we do, and it’s easy to lose sight of that here in Alaska with our harvests being a bit more anemic,” said Hull. “But I think it’s something that’s really important, so I appreciate the challenge.”

Hull said her criteria for evaluating sides, main dishes and desserts — whether vegan, vegetarian or meat-based — are the same. She said a dish is incomplete if it’s missing good flavor, color, texture and feasibility for producing high quantities and staying fresh for takeout orders.

Hull said of those criteria, texture is harder to determine when making plant-based meals. Since plant-based textures can often be softer, Hull emphasized a focus on bringing elements that vary in texture into each dish.

Hull is looking forward to participating in the challenge next year, and encourages her team to create vegan options beyond the challenge.

“Hopefully we have the opportunity to feature more vegan options on our specials menu throughout the year, so that when the challenge does come around, we’re ready to bring our best dishes to the challenge,” said Hull.

Michelle Sinnott is the baker behind baked-goods pop-up The Flaky Pastry. She won the Oui Can’t Believe It’s Vegan award for making croissants with nontraditional vegan-friendly ingredients.

Sinnott said she was proud of all her dishes. For the challenge, she made lamington cronuts, Bakewell tart bars and galette des rois. 

Sinnott has spent time perfecting the galette des rois, and was excited to have the dessert be an item for the challenge. Sinnott was inspired to combine lamingtons and croissants into a lamington cronut. Sinnott loves bakewell tarts — especially their Alaskan raspberry flavor — so adapting it into a bar was an easy choice.

Sinnott has been vegan for nearly two decades, during which she learned how to cook and bake plant-based meals. She said that some people can see veganism as restrictive, but she views it as a way to come up with cruelty-free and creative recipes for dishes not traditionally made vegan.

“It’s usually not as easy as finding a recipe on the internet. You have to think about what different flavors you can use and what eggs and other ingredients normally do in the recipe,” said Sinnott. “But I don’t see it as a door being closed, I see it as all the doors and windows of creativity being opened.”

Sinnott said she is going to participate in next year’s challenge, and is already perfecting a vegan moonpie croissant as well as a vegan angel food cake. 

Nas Benhalim is the executive chef at Spenard Roadhouse. Spenard Roadhouse took first place overall at the awards.

Benhalim drew inspiration from the Great British Bakeoff for their dessert, the mille-feuille. “It’s a classic French dessert, and I wanted to not only make it vegan, but make it delicious.”

Benhalim said that when he creates vegan dishes, he tries to avoid overprocessed foods and instead works to make natural, plant-based options the star of the dish. He said this emphasis on creating recipes with natural ingredients is what makes the best vegan dishes.

Benhalim said that participating in the challenge brings an evolving vegan item to Spenard Roadhouse’s menu each year. Their dish from last year, the miso glazed shiitake mushroom tacos, will be rotated out on the menu for this year’s beet tartare.

Benhalim said he hasn’t come up with what dishes Spenard Roadhouse will be making yet, but he looks forward to participating in next year’s challenge.