2019 ASHEVILLE FOOD FAN AWARDS! Best of Asheville part 2: MAKERS BAKERS TRUCKS ‘N’ SUCH

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2019 BEST OF ASHEVILLE FOOD PART 2
Makers, Bakers, Trucks ‘n’ Such


Warning, Refresher, and Seven Years Later…

WARNING: The following blog post contains adult language.

REFRESHERHi, my name is Stu Helm. I started writing food reviews for my friends on Facebook about 8 years ago, and now — thanks in large part to Ashvegas — I’m happy to say that I’m a pretty well-known local food blogger, and a food tour guide for Asheville Food Tours. Yay! Early on as a food blogger, I started to give out “Best of” awards, that I called “The Stoobies.” The first year that I published my Stoobies on Ashvegas, literally the only people who cared where hating on me and asking me who-the-fuck I thought I was, yadda yadda. 

Seven years later, The Stoobies are now called the Asheville Food Fan Awards, and I’m psyched to say that people actually seem to give a shit, in a good way! The readers let me know that they either agree or disagree, or that they need to go try this or that nominee or winner. The restaurants and other food scene entities also seem to enjoy being singled out for praise and accolades! You can even find my plaques and stickers in the windows and on the walls of a bunch of local venues who have won awards from me in the past, and I hope to see more and more as the years go by!


PARRRTAYYYYYY!

How this works: I am in the process of announcing the nominees in several categories here on Ashvegas and on January 27th. When I’m done with the nominations, the winners will be announced and the physical awards will be handed out at a LIVE ceremony! You can attend the live ceremony by purchasing tickets HERE!

I know what you’re thinking, “Will there be food?” Well, duh, yes, a shitload.  

WHEN
JANUARY 27TH, 2020
• V.I.P. Admission – 5:00PM
FOOD • DRINKS • SCHMOOZING
• General Admission: 6:00PM
FOOD • DRINKS • SCHMOOZING
• Awards Ceremony 7:00PM – 8:00PM
FOOD • DRINKS • SCHMOOZING
• Evening Ends at 9:30PM
AFTER PARTY
@ Asheville Beauty Academy

WHERE
Asheville Masonic Temple
80 Broadway St, Asheville, NC 28801
ashevillemasonictemple.com

WHY
To have fun, while paying tribute to the great people who make up the amazing Asheville Food Scene!

WHO
Produced by: Stu Helm Food FanShay Brown Events, & Ashvegas.com

Click HERE or on the “Buy Tickets Now” button below


Reminder: These are my own top picks, based on my own personal experiences and opinions. Your experiences and opinions may vary. Also, I go out to eat often, but I can’t get everywhere and eat everything. If I missed you in 2019, I’ll try to get to you in 2020.

Alrighty, are you all already ready already?

Then let’s get started on Part 2 with a category that is near and dear to my own heart, which is racing at all times for obvious reasons…

I need a constant intake of hot caffeinated liquids in order to survive on this strange alien world you call Earp. The very first thing I did when I got here to Asheville was locate the coffee vendors. Izzy’s Coffee Den on N. Lexington Ave was my first love and remains my favorite. Bohemian without being hippy-dippy, cool without being too cool for school, and they have great fucking coffee. Plus a killer chocolate chip cookie that rules! Anyhoodles, they not up for an award this year, I just wanted to give them a shout out and say that they are my all-time favorite cafe in Asheville. The Cafe / Tea Room of the Year nominees for this year are…

High Climate Tea

I don’t drink a lot of tea. And by, “a lot of,” I mean “any.” But I decided to add tea rooms to this category, pretty much so that I could nominate High Climate. I went in to try the food, and before I knew it, the owner had me drinking tea, and enjoying it! Now, I’m not sayin’ that all of a sudden I’m a tea drinker, but I can absolutely imagine a real tea enthusiast going absolutely ape-shit over this place. I mean, I literally almost couldn’t give less of a fuck about tea, and here I am nominating these folks for an award usually reserved for coffee, a beverage I love so much I started a festival for it! That’s how impressed I was with this tea place. Also, the decor is stellar, the ambience is serene, the staff is insanely nice and enthused about tea, and if all that’s not enough to convince you to pop in, I just have three more words for you: House made mochi. Yep. 

Double Decker Coffee Bus

Celebrating 20 years of being here in Asheville, and 10 years under the current ownership, Double D’s as it’s called, is one of the best little cafes in all of Asheville, and has been one of my faves since I first got here in 2005. The staff is great, the owners are nice, the drip coffee is always hot ‘n’ fresh and the espresso drinks are made by expert baristas. Sitting upstairs is a treat, and the patio is pleasant AF. Sure, the Coffee Bus is super popular with tourists, why wouldn’t it be? But it’s not just for tourists by any means! When it’s not jam-packed like an actual bus at rush hour in London, it’s one of my most frequent and favored places to grab a cup of coffee to go, or a shot of espresso to shoot right before work. Also: It’s cash only and I love that. Fuck the Man! 

Yuzu Patisserie Cafe

Located in the Foundation section of the River Arts District, and co-owned by pastry chef Cynthia Pierce and her husband, artist Akira Satake, , Yuzu Patisserie Cafe is located inside Akira’s Ceramics / Gallery Mugen. Akira Satake makes some of the most beautiful ceramic sculptures and functional pieces in Asheville, with a truly unique vision. And right there in the shop is a very small, humble, and excellent cafe and pastry shop featuring very good coffee and delicious baked goods from award winning chefs like Ashley Capps and Susannah Gebhart, as well as others. I have been writing about Yuzu for many years, and recommending it to anyone and everyone who will listen. So far, I know that my mom is a regular. I hope you will become one too! Oh, and one of the best parts of dining in at Yuzu is that of course they use Akira’s cups and plates for service, and that is something special to me. I’m a little bit of a plate queen.


Hard Truths: From my perspective, the restaurants in Asheville bullied the food trucks right out of downtown. They were in favor of the rules that currently prohibit trucks to park in downtown proper. I’m not the “food lawyer” so I don’t know jack about the details, but basically, you won’t find a food truck anywhere downtown, and very few food carts. There have been attempts at “food truck lots” like the one on Coxe Ave, or the so-called Pit of Despair on Haywood, but both of those areas are: 1. Pure Hell in terms of human needs for comfort and survival, and 2. They also suck for the food trucks. Nobody goes to food truck lots, because that’s not how food trucks work, Yo. They have wheels. You don’t go to them. They come to you. ._. At least one restaurateur I know has admitted to me, and even expressed regrets, that they were part of the bullying of the food trucks. Now they say they recognize how important and legit the trucks are to our food scene. If you want to see a healthy model for food truck and cart integration into a city, check out Portland, OR. Food trucks everywhere, and restaurants. They can co-exist. Because of Asheville’s stringent food truck rules, I can’t get to them as much as I’d like to because they tend to park at bars and breweries outside of downtown. I don’t drink, so I don’t hit up a lot of bars and breweries, but I do get to try the food trucks on the South Slope, and occasionally I will take a special trip to a bar or brewery further away, just  to eat from a particular truck, so even with my limited experience, I do have favorites, and three in particular that I enjoy very much. Those are my three nominees for 2019 Food Truck of the Year!

Brinehaus Meat + Provisions Food Truck

Whether he’s making the most punk rock hot dog in Asheville, being named Chef of the Year by the NC Hospitality and Lodging Association, or winning the Wing War… again… Chef Steven Goff is a competitor and a winner, and one Hell of a hard worker. In addition to running AUX Bar from 11am – 2am 7 days a week, he has a catering business, and a food truck! The truck is called Brinehaus Meat + Provisions, and wow, it’s fucking great. When I see it, I eat from it, and I am always stoked. Brisket, tacos, and some of the best tots I’ve ever had. Brinehaus also won the Taco Takeover with their smoked chicken taco, which I’ve had a time or two, and is outstanding! Look for this big-ass truck and eat from it. You will not be sorry!

Food Stop Food Truck

Chef Glenn Golcher is perhaps one of Asheville’s best kept secrets. His humble-looking truck, called Food Stop is cranking out some of the best food I’ve ever had in Asheville, period, in any setting. His Philly cheesesteak is THE best in my opinion. His Reuben is something I think about and crave in my down-time. And when he’s making his German food… look out. It’s fucking phenomenal. These days, Glenn is parked way out by the Whistle Hop Brewery, so I don’t get to see him much, but when he was at Catawba on the South Slope, I was hitting him up almost weekly. Great eats, nice guy, Food Stop. Stop there for food. Tell Glenn I said “hi,” and that I cry myself to sleep every Sunday. He’ll know what you’re talking about. 

Out of the Blue Peruvian Food Truck

Sadly, the truck is no longer around, as Chef Santiago Vargas retired it this year in order to pursue other ventures, but for most of 2019, he was crushing it with his Peruvian fusion food, and “Atajualpa” BBQ dinners at the Bywater. If you ever ate from Out of the Blue, you know how great it was, and if you never got a chance, don’t worry, Chef Vargas is still in town, and you can follow him on Facebook to see where and what he’ll be up to next! He’s a chef to watch as he rises in our scene! It all started with a food truck, as it often does. He made me and Paddy and Luis some chicken cracklin’ lettuce and tomato sandwiches once that were the fuckin’ bomb. CLT. Whaaa? Yes. I’m sad the truck is gone, but wanted to pay homage one last time, with a nomination for my 2019 Food Truck of the Year!


By “Fancy Meal” I mostly mean ticketed, one time only, pop-ups, and special dinners in a seated situation other than in a normal restaurant during normal hours of operation. I actually didn’t go to as many in 2019 as I have in past years, and the ones I did attend weren’t quite as fancy as others I’ve gone to in the past, though they were all equal to anything I’ve attended at much ritzier venues, and each meal, chef, and venue listed in my top three nominees is absolutely worthy of praise!

Parrillada Atahualpa w/ Chef Santiago Vargas / Out of the Blue Food Truck

This was an outdoor, open pit BBQ extravaganza like none other, and the sheer amount of MEAT involved makes this event special. I don’t know that there will ever be another night quite like it. The weather was perfect. It happened at the Bywater, and the setting was also perfect, with the river and the train tracks right there. The food was incredible. Incredible! The kind of food that I think about for days, or as it turns out, months afterward. I’m 100 percent sure that I will be thinking about this meal for many years to come. Chef Santiago started us out with an insanely delicious salad, and then the grilled meat train kept a’rollin’ all night long, until we were all ready to pop. Chicken, pork, and beef all made their way into my face, and good god, every bite was cooked just perfectly. This chef is worth watching and following, so please look for him on social media to see what he’s got planned next.

Hog Hash Bash w/ Chef Elliott Moss / Buxton Hall BBQ et al.

This one I actually bought a ticket for! Whaaaaat? Yes, I do usually count on chefs and venues to invite me to fancy dinners on the house, because, ain’t no joke, writing doesn’t pay much and fancy dinners tend to be pretty pricey. When I saw that this one was much cheaper than most, I was like, “Hell yes, I can swing that,” so I got my tix and boy howdy, did I eat hash. Hog hash, in case you don’t know is made out of guts and stuff, and is a South Carolina thing. Buxton is perhaps the only restaurant in NC that has it (I’m not 100% sure about that though, so if you’ve heard of another one, please let us all know!), so Chef Elliott went all of SC and collected a bunch of hog hash from a bunch of different makers and brought them all up here for us to do a compare and contrast meal with. I love that kind of thing! He served them buffet style with some mac ‘n’ cheese and other sides, and about 25 of us got to sample a dozen different hog hashes. This wasn’t the fanciest meal by any means, but it was awesome and unique and definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience! I am grateful for the opportunity, and I highly recommend keeping a close eye on what Chef Elliott and crew are doing over there as far as pop-ups go. It’s not the usual.

Love Songs w/ Chef Silver Cousler / Gan Shan West

Chef Cousler has always been one of my favorite chefs in Asheville, though I don’t get as many opportunities to eat their food as I would like to. Last year Chef Cousler took over the kitchen at Gan Shan West and helped make that location awesome in my opinion. They also did a couple of pop-ups along the way, one of which I was lucky enough to attend with Dawn and our friend Tema. Something I look for in a special food experience is the marriage of the familiar and the different. Like most people, I enjoy foods that combine the comfort of something familiar and the excitement of something different, and this meal had both a’plenty. I ate the koji steak with gai lon and cured butter, and Tema got the smoked fried chicken. Everything, every bite, was exciting and comforting, familiar and different, right down to the fact that Chef Silver brought me a bottle of A-1 sauce, because that’s how they enjoyed it in the Philippines with their Grandma. Well, of course, that’s exactly how my grandfather from upstate NY served steak as well, and although he would have never heard of gai lon before, if I’d have told him it’s like broccoli, only different, he might have tried to grow some on his farm, and I know he would have enjoyed it. Anyhoo, this dinner was one of the most enjoyable eating experiences I had all year, and that’s why it’s my third and final contender in the category of Fancy Meal of the Year!


Honorable Mention

Fancy Dinner w/ Chef Jay Medford

I can’t nominate this one, even though it was literally called “Fancy Dinner,” and was excellent,  because I produced it, and it’s always awk as fuck when people hand themselves awards on stage. Chef Jay deserves some accolades and attention for knocking it out of the park, though, by cooking and serving a 4 course dinner to our guests that was one of the best, most fun, most filling and delicious fancy meals I’ve ever attended. Jay is a great, highly trained chef, and running the excellent yet humble Underground Cafe he missed making “fancy” food, so he and I worked on this “Fancy Dinner” concept secretly. I sold a very limited number of tickets, the folks who attended were super happy and  impressed with Jay’s Asian inspired menu, plus, we sent them all home with a one of his killer doughp doughnuts. Jay is now rockin’ his fancier fare at Storm Rhum Bar, which he purchased in October, so go check him out there for sure!


As great as all the chefs and cooks and makers and bakers in this town are, and as friendly as I’ve become with many of them, it’s still and always will be the folks working the front of the house that I interact with the most. All of the hosts, servers, cashiers, bartenders etc etc out there. The hardworking, wonderful people who meet and greet the customers, and provide us with the personal touch that can make or break a venue. I always say that the eaters are more willing to forgive bad food than bad service, and I’m including myself in that equation, although I may be more forgiving than most, as i know what  abad day looks like, compared to bad service. Anyhoo, the F.O.H. can be the reason any of us goes back to venue, or not! The following three nominees in the Best Effin’ F.O.H. are definitely part of what brings me back!

ABOUT THE PHOTOS – I don’t like to take and publish pictures of people who are just doin’ they jobs, so the people will be represented by food instead. 

Contrada

I’ve never nominated one person for “Front of the House” award before, but that’s what’s happening now. When Chef Brian Cannipelli opened Contrada one door down from his other restaurant, Cucina 24, I was, like, “what madness is this?” Well, then I went in, and saw for myself that the madness is of the highest quality possible! I love this concept! It’s a concept so unique to Asheville, that kinda needs to be explained, and there’s no person in this world better suited to explain it that the one and only person there, who happenes to be a beloved Asheville cheese-maker and local downtown figure that I have known for years named Brenton. You may remember Brenton from 5 Walnut Cheese Shop, or you may know him from his cheese-makery with Blue Ridge Mountain Creamery. If you do know him from either of those two venues or anywhere else, you probably have some ideas already why I think he is worthy of an award that I usually reserve for a whole crew of people working the front of the house. Brenton is essentially a room full of people all in one person. He’s awesome and he’s my first contender for Best Effin’ F.O.H.

Strada

I have the utmost respect and admiration for the front of the house at Strada. The high level of professional demeanor, depth of knowledge, pride of place, and dedication to the job displayed by the servers, bartenders, food runners, hosts and managers is impressive and consistent across the board. When you go into Strada, you will have an excellent hospitality experience. End of story. From the warm greeting at the door, to the helpful entree suggestions, the nonjudgmental accommodation of just about any dietary restrictions, the quality conversation about wine, the sophisticated cocktails, everything at Strada in just perfect. I try to avoid commenting on personal appearance, but I’d like to in this case, just to say that the uniforms are sharp, the staff presents themselves in a very thoughtful and appropriate way, and I appreciate that. The front of the house at Strada is pro, nappy as fuck, friendly without being overbearing, and pretty much exemplifies what’s up with good hospitality service. Go and see for yourselves.

Benne on Eagle

Benne has had one of the tightest arcs of excellence I have ever seen in my life, from “now open” to “world’s best” in less than a year, and I’ll tell you what, the front of house absolutely deserves some credit for that arc, Y’all! Yes they do. Great food is the draw, of course — please go there and get that — but we all know that even the best food won’t get a regular audience in Asheville if the service is not also on point. Benne is on point. Friendly, professional, knowledgeable, the front of the house is all of those things, and more. The host will greet and seat you with a smile, your bartender will consult with you and make you the perfect cocktail, your server will help guide you through the frequently changing menu, and teach you things you didn’t know about Appalachian and Afrolachian food, as well as the West African fare and ingredients that are also featured in their dishes. When Time magazine starts to focus their eye on you, and literally call you one of the best places in the world, that’s a lot of pressure for any establishment, let alone a new one, so I also commend the FOH for facing that pressure with rock solid service and hospitality. if you haven’t been to Benne get there and have a great experience, and see why I’ve nominated them for my Best Effin’ F.O.H. in Asheville award for 2019!


Honroable Mentionuts

Chestnut – I can’t give these guys any awards for FOH because both of my nephews work there as food runners, so… womp womp. No can do because nepotism. However, honorable mentions are all good, ethics-wise, and I wanna tell you what: I ferkin’ lerv me some Chestnut F.O.H. Day shift, night shift, bar, floor, host’s stand, managers, everyone is awesome, and they run like a clock. The work ethic with the F.O.H. at Chestnut is rock solid, and they are one of the smiliest crews of people working in any venue in downtown or in any other part of Asheville. I love my nephs, they coo, but everybody else up in the front o’ The Nut is more than deserving of these mentions, if not a nomination. Sorry, Y’all. Please don’t fire my nephews just to get a Stoobie!


Where would we be without the people who make food? Well, we’d be in the fuckin’ kitchen 24/7 grinding mustard seeds, pickling okra, smoking bacon, and pulverizing maize in our backyard gristmills, makin’ grist for grits. We’d never have time to actually cook anything, let alone eat, because we’d be constantly making! Fuck. That. I’m happy as can be that I don’t have to make my own fuckin’ stuff. From sausage to cocoa powder to chowchow to caramel sauce, other people have allll that shit covered, and they’s doing it locally and in a very excellent and admirable way. Here are three that I’d like to pay honor to in the form of nominations for the 2019 Food Maker of the Year award…

Bees / The Asheville Bee Charmer

Bees are so cool. They buzz around, rubbing pollen all over themselves, helping plants propagate, looking totally bad-ass in their tiny black and yellow outfits, plus they will totally sting your ass AND they make honey! Fuck yes. They work hard, we eat sweetness. It works out great! (For us. Shhhhh!) And while the bees do all the work making the honey, the good people at The Asheville Bee Charmer do an amazing job of finding the honey, jarring the honey, teaching us about honey, and in many cases infusing the honey with great all natural ingredients like coffee, vanilla, rosemary, and ghost pepper, just to list a few. We’re very lucky to have not one, but two Bee Charmer locations in downtown Asheville, and they are the bzzzzzest! Yerp. I just did that.

Meg Chamberlain / Fermenti

I’m perfectly happy to admit that I know absolutely nothing about the fermenting process, and even happier to report that I don’t need to! It seems like a smelly and dangerous process that might literally blow-up in one’s face if not done right. While I certainly don’t know how to do it right, Meg Chamberlain at Fermenti does! Yay! Meg makes fermented things for a bunch of the restaurants in town, which in turn makes our entire food scene more interesting and less wasteful. It’s all a fuckin’ mystery to me, I just really like the things she makes, which result in things like fermented pumpkin doughnuts, and I feel fortunate that she’s here adding one more layer of awesomeness to our local food scene, and that’s why she is my second nominee for 2019 Food Maker of the Year!


Franco Donohue / Firewalker Hot Sauce

If you haven’t met Franco, you gotta meet Franco. He’s at all the food events, he’s super-enthused about his product, and he is just one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. About 99.999% of astute local eaters are already familiar with his Firewalker brand hot sauce, because it’s on many of the table tops in the restaurants around town, and in many of the professional as well as private kitchens all over WNC. He’s got a couple of levels of heat, and the flavor is dialed in just right. If you want to hear a great food success story, ask Franco to tell you how he started making his hot sauce in college and everyone universally hated it, but he didn’t give up, and kept perfecting his recipe, until his friends gave it rave reviews, and he was ready to present his recipes to the public! Well, I guess you don’t have ask him to tell you the story now, because I just did. I left about the part about the bathtub, so ask him about that. And get his hot sauce.


What I know about farms and farming you could fit in one bushel basket. I mean, I know it’s called corn and that it comes out of the fucking ground, but only because I watched a Youtube video about it one time. So when it comes to local farms and farmers, I really only know what the chefs tell me, and what their produce, and proteins taste like. And by “proteins,” yes, I mean animals… shhhhh! Vegans, you did not hear me say that. There are no animal farms… all the cows live on the beach now, or roam with the wild bison… Sleeeeep, sweet Vegans, sleeeeeeep

photo © Gaining Ground Farm

Gaining Ground Farm

Who’s name do I hear pass the leps of more chefs all over town than any other? “Gaining Ground.” Chef John Fleer might be their biggest fan, but it seems like just about everybody uses something from Gaining Ground Farm too. One chef recently told me that Gaining Ground grows things that other farms don’t or can’t, and that their farmers are super duper skilled at what they do. They seem to have a dedicated following among the chefs in this town, and therefore I respect them too!

photo © Sleight Family Farm

Sleight Family Farm

I like my micros. I’m sorry if that makes me seem bouchie as fuck, and I’m well aware that some people think they are silly, but they’re pretty, and sometimes with certain types of microgreens, the flavor is like, wow. Anyhoo Slate Family farms provides a lot of the microgreens for the restaurants around town, I hear their name a lot, and I love their product.

photo © Franny’s Farm

Franny’s Farm

My third nominee for Farm / Farmer of the Year is a little different. Yes, they have animals, and vegetables, and a u-pick blueberry patch, and all the usual farm-type stuff, but they also have hemp. As you know, hemp is an incredible product, with a ton of versatility, that can be used to make everything from rope and fabric to tinctures and CBD. The reason I’m nominating Franny’s is because they are pioneers in CBD oils here in WNC, which have found their way into just about every imaginable food product out there. Also, Franny’s is poised to be at the forefront of the edibles scene, which is going to break wide open as soon as actual weed is actually legal. When that happens, it’s going to add a whole new dimension to our food scene, and Franny’s Farm is already leading the way.


Okay, first of all, bakers are chefs, and last year I gave my Chef of the Year award to a baker, Chef Ashley Capps. This year I decided to split it off into its own category, simply so that I could give out more awards! I love baked goods and I eat a ton of them. I can’t bake, I suck at it for real, so I count on others to do the baking for me. Cookies, cakes, pastries, breads of all kinds. That’s what I want, that’s what I crave, that’s what I need an endless supply of, and that’s what the following three nominees for 2019 Baker of the Year give me.

Jill Worthy aka The Worthy Baker

Hi Jill! (Jill and I are friends.) That friendship was born from working together, and that working relationship started with a recommendation from a fellow baker. Jill provides a “take-home-treat” for many of my walking food tours, and wow, is that ever a popular feature of tours. People’s motherfuckin’ eyes pop out their heads when they get a look at Jill’s cookies, and other magnificent treats. Just working with me and making people happy ain’t enough for a nomination as Baker of the Year, though, and Jill really earned this spot with tons and tons of hard work and dedication. I have watched her business grow and grow and grow in the past 12 months, and it’s making me very happy. She’s busy and thriving, and I saw that happen over a very short period of time. Follow Jill on Facebook and you will also be just as impressed with her work rate and professionalism. Try her baked goods, and you’ll become a fan.

Fred Dehlow / Geraldine’s Bakery

Geraldine’s is just a fuckin’ staple at this point in time, but I remember a pre-Geraldine’s Asheville, and it wasn’t as good. That’s right, the period of time that I lived in Asheville before Geraldine’s opened their doors just wasn’t as enjoyable for me personally as the period of time after they opened. I’m sure a lot of you feel the same way, whether you know it or not. Fred and the crew at Geraldine’s are providing fresh baked bread to so many restaurants, it’s impossible for me to keep up with. Y’all know I eat a ton of sandwiches. It seems like most of the time, when I post a picture of a sandwich online, someone from the bakery will pop-up in the comments to say, “Bread by Geraldine’s!” I love that. Also, they make great hot dog buns, that were featured in my Punk Rock Hot Dogs competition and were excellent! On top of all that, Fred’s a great guy and his whole family is as nice as can be. They have been a great addition to our town and our food scene, and we are all better off for having them here!

Joe and Annie Ritota / Annie’s Bakery

I’ve been eating Annie’s bread since the first week I lived in Asheville way back in 2005, and they’d already been at it for seven years before I got here! One of Asheville’s longest-lived indie food makers, Annie’s makes high-quality breads available in markets, and on sandwiches all over town. I’ve been know to make my sandwich buying decision based entirely on the fact that it’s made with Annie’s bread, and when I see a loaf of it at the grocery store, I’m getting it! Hardy, healthy, made with love and care, this bread is the real deal, and I love it dearly. I’m a bread fan, no doubt about it, and Annie’s breads hit every single nail on the head with me. Good stuff, and just like every baker, maker, cook, venue, truck, and chef mentioned in this post, we are damn lucky to have them here in WNC!


Aaaand that’s the end of part rwo of the Asheville Food Fan Awards!

The nominees in the rest of the categories will be announced right here on Ashvegas over the next week, and then the winners and actual physical awards will be given out in th LIVE ceremony on January 27th at the Asheville Masonic Temple!

Prt 1
Sandwich of the Year • Burger of the Year • Best Pickled / Fermented Thing • Best Use of Fungus • Best of Blood & Guts • Pork Product of the Year • Best Sweet Treat

Prt 2
Cafe / Tea Room of the year • Food Truck of the Year • Fancy Meal of the Year • Best Efiin’ F.O.H. • Food maker of the Year • Farm / Farmer of the Year / Baker of the year

~ STAY TUNED FOR PART THREE! ~


COME TO THE LIVE CEREMONY TO FIND OUT WHO THE WINNERS ARE IN ALL CATEGORIES!

Tickets are available NOW!

Click HERE or on the “Buy Tickets Now” button below


WHEN
JANUARY 27TH, 2020
• V.I.P. Admission – 5:00PM
FOOD • DRINKS • SCHMOOZING
• General Admission: 6:00PM
FOOD • DRINKS • SCHMOOZING
• Awards Ceremony 7:00PM – 8:00PM
FOOD • DRINKS • SCHMOOZING
• Evening Ends at 9:30PM
AFTER PARTY
@ Asheville Beauty Academy

WHERE
Asheville Masonic Temple
80 Broadway St, Asheville, NC 28801
ashevillemasonictemple.com

WHY
To have fun, while paying tribute to the great people who make up the amazing Asheville Food Scene!

WHO
Produced by: Shay Brown Events with Stu Helm Food Fan & Ashvegas.com

Cocktail and Beverages presented by The Urban Gastronome, and provided by Cultivated Cocktails & Dalton Distillery, Nantahala Brewing, Hillman Beer and Catawba Brewing, Bottle Riot (formally District Wine Bar), South Slope Coffee, Twisp Southern Hard Cider, Devil’s Foot Beverages

Food presented by Shay Brown Events and Stu Helm the Food Fan, and provided by Sunny Point, Aux Bar, Curate and Button’s Bagels, Underground Cafe, Sandhill Kitchen, Sunshine Sammies, The Worthy Baker, 50 Fifty the Art of Desserts, Rosa Bee’s, Manicomino Pizza, French Broad Chocolate Lounge, Buxton Hall, Sovereign Remedies & Bottle Riot, Golden Fleece and Mtn Madre and MORE!

CBD Lounge by Franny’s Farmacy!


From left: Chef Jacob Sessoms of Table; Chef William Dissen, The Market Place; Chef Steven Goff, Standard Foods; Chef Katie Button, Curate; Chef Joe Scully, Chestnut and Corner Kitchen; Stu Helm; Chef John Fleer, Rhubarb; Chef Karen Donatelli, Donatelli Bakery; Chef Peter Pollay, Posana Cafe; and Chef Matt Dawes, Bull & Beggar./ Photo by STEWART O’SHIELDS for ASHVEGAS.COM