Chef Does It Again; 'Architectural' Design Topples Competition

Chef Andy Chlebana, who just months ago pocketed a $10,000 prize on the F, has scored again in Patry Live's National Showpiece Championship in Atlanta.

The Joliet Junior College pastry chef/instructor and his partner, Nancy Carey from the College of DuPage, took home two $1,000 awards from the Aug. 28 competition – one for best chocolate piece and another for best overall showpiece.

Chlebana, a Plainfield resident, described their creation as an “earth star of sorts,” for which they drew on the architecture of Frank Gehry (designer of the pedestrian bridge and Pritzker Bandshell in Chicago’s Millennium Park), scientific drawings by Ernst Haeckel and sculpture by Lee Bontecou and Louise Bourgeois.

Each of the five competing teams was required to use three white pedestals and had eight hours to come up with a design that would “push the boundaries of showpiece construction and aim for more artistic and architecturally inspired creations,” according to a PRLog release on the competition.

The three bases sound as if they would be restrictive but, in fact, were liberating, Chlebana said.

“The idea was not to limit our creativity, but to let us be free to design,” he said. “This is not the norm for competitions. (Traditionally) there is a formula for how to create and display a showpiece. This competition allowed us to work outside of these ‘rules.’”

Chlebana said he was contacted about the show in May and asked to be an event captain, an honor that resulted from his work in previous competitions and his being named the National Pastry Chef of the Year by the American Culinary Federation.

He was initially inclined to turn it down, he said, because he wasn’t sure he could find a partner with whom he could pull a concept together in just a few months. Then he thought of Carey, whom he had competed against in the past and with whom he had recently taken a chocolate class.

She turned out to be a great choice as their strengths and weaknesses complemented each other, he said.

Earlier this year, Chlebana garnered headlines for his work with JJC assistant Heather Schreiner on the Food Network Challenge. The goal of the was to compete against three other “sugar artists” to build a candy “dress” that could be moved and set up in a store window – all in seven hours or less.

The show was televised in April, and Chlebana took the top prize for his “Kaleidoscope Dress.”