5 restaurants blend burgers for contest
or becoming a Mushroom Council Blenditarian at blenditarian.com (five entries, but can be done only once).
Here’s what the Pittsburgh restaurants are serving up:
• Burgh’ers: The Fox Chapel patties are made of 25 percent local roasted mixed mushrooms and 75 percent local grass-fed beef, and they’re topped with goat cheese, pickled red onion, avocado, spring mix and balsamic glaze.
• Hyde Park Prime Steakhouse: The Black Forest Burger features wild boar blended with morel, wood ear, chanterelle and white mushrooms. It also features truffle paste and apple marmalade, and is topped with truffle goat cheese and apple-bacon syrup.
• Social House Seven: The patty is a 50/50 blend of wagyu beef and local
Five local restaurants are mixing beef with mushrooms to create healthier and more sustainable “blended burgers.”
It’s all part of the James Beard Foundation’s third annual Blended Burger Project, which has 400 chefs from around the country participating. Through July 31, patrons can visit the restaurants, try the burgers and vote for their favorites. The five chefs who get the most online votes will travel to New York City to prepare their winning burgers at a Blended Burger event at the James Beard House. Everyone who votes also will be entered to win a trip for two to New York for the Blended Burger event.
Fiore Moletz, owner of Burgh’ers in Lawrenceville, was one of the five winning chefs when the project debuted two summers ago, and he’s in the contest this year, too. The other restaurants are: Hyde Park Prime Steakhouse, North Shore; Social House Seven, Downtown; Cioppino, Downtown; and Pallantia Tapas de Espana, Shadyside.
Last time, Mr. Moletz had only a week in which to garner enough votes for the win. He said he was unaware of the inaugural BlendedBurger Project until the Mushroom Council called him and asked why his restaurant wasn’t participating. He created a burger pronto, posted it to the website and said that he got a shock when he ended up among the winners.
At press time, Burgh’ers was leading the Pittsburgh pack with 436 votes, but even Burgh’ers was far outstripped by restaurants from other states, some of which had already garnered more than 17,000 nods.
Consumers can garner additional entries by tweeting their vote using the hashtag # BlendedBurgerProject, sharing a photo of their favorite burger on Instagram (this gets two entries every time) mushrooms, and topped with caramelized kimchi, whipped feta, pickled carrots, kosho mayo and umami ketchup.
• Cioppino: The Smoked 'Shroom & Swiss Burger patty is a blend of chuck and beef short rib with 25 percent chanterelle mushrooms. It’s finished with smoked tomato jam, bacon and Swiss and served on a brioche bun.
• Pallantia Tapas de Espana, Shadyside: The patty is made of dry-aged brisket, skirt steak, short rib and 25 percent golden chanterelles. It’s topped with quince and espelette pepper barbecue sauce, frisee and Valdeon dressing, and served on a pumpernickel raisin slider bun.
To vote, go to blendedburgerproject.com.