Carlsbad Chefs Battle It Out ‘Iron Chef’ Style

Two Carlsbad chefs went head-to-head June 5 at the North County , a live cooking competition. But no punches were thrown; this battle happened on the stove top.

“I’m a big fan of the TV-style cooking shows,” said Chris Kern, creator and host of Sunday Night Chef Fights. “Most of those shows have panels that do the judging, but I wanted to get the audience involved and let them be judge, jury and taste-cutioner.”

The North County Sunday Night Chef fights are held every three months at Standards of Excellence showroom in San Marcos. The latest bout featured Kurtis Habecker facing off against . Habecker is defending champion and chef de cuisine at Argyle Steakhouse at the . Martignago is the executive chef at and

Before the event, both men were given three basic ingredients to work with: fish, beans and tomato, with a mystery ingredient: marshmallow. They were also given a shopping allowance and had a week to plan and prep their dishes for a 60-member audience jury. During the bout, each chef had just 30 minutes to cook and finish samples of their creations.

“It’s really exciting,” said Scott, an audience member and taste tester. “We actually found out about this through Carlsbad Patch and decided to give it a try.”

At the end of the fight, challenging chef Martignago won the title and was crowned the new champion. His savory dishes included jumbo lump blue crab salad served  in a ring of cucumbers and cherry tomato slices atop grapefruit marshmallow jelly (the marshmallow was well disguised!).

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