Emeril Sous Chef’d For A Culinary School Student To Help Her Win A $20K Scholarship

In addition to having celebrity chefs taking over a Las Vegas Buffet, Bon Appetit’s Vegas Uncork’d Food Festival also brought together Chef Emeril Lagasse and Le Cordon Blue student Elsa Sabellano to compete at the Chase Sapphire Preferred Grill Challenge. The stakes? $20,000 of scholarship money toward culinary education. The twist? Chef Lagasse would have to take orders from first-year culinary student Sabellano whilst competing against the other chef-student duo of Michael Mina and Kristina Burdick.

Chef Lagasse would also need to leave his everyday responsibilities as a restauranteur and executive chef behind, exchanging culinary direction and celebrity meet-and-greets, for… chopping onion and celery. Both chef-student duos created an iteration of Bouillabaisse, a traditional fish stew originally from France, with the Lagasse-Sabellano dish taking home the prize with its black garlic and lemongrass variation (pictured below).

Photos by Isaac Brekken for Bon Appetit.