Yakima, WA - Yakima Chef Shawn Niles ranked third in the World Food Championship's (WFC) Taste of America Challenge (TOA) and will now be moving on to the next part of the competition in November.
This is not the first time Niles has been recognized for his food. In fact, he's been voted Yakima's favorite chef for two consecutive years, competed in other WFC categories and in 2017 cooked on the show MasterChef for Gordon Ramsay.
According to Niles it was what Ramsay said to him that inspired him to combine his love for his community with his cooking talent.
"I'm on the show with Gordon Ramsay and Gordon Ramsay looks at me and says Shawn it's clear that you were born to serve your community, but it's also clear that you were born to cook," Niles said. "I came back and thought maybe there is something more to this maybe we can take this farther."
That same summer, Niles got together with friends and created Fat Pastor Productions, which now has two restaurants - Il Grasso and The Lab. Niles and his friends also created on of the first legal underground dining clubs in the United States.
Even though Niles has been recognized before, the anticipation of waiting to see where he placed in the TOA challenge was exciting.
"My friends and I we are watching this and we're seeing everybody - they're releasing the competitors as they win starting with like 30th place and so we're kind of counting down throughout that whole process," Niles said. "We're like 'oh we're in the top 25.' 'Oh we're in the top 20." "Oh we're in the top 15,' then all of a sudden we're like 'we're in the top five.'"
WFC announced the standings over a period of three days and Niles said he and his friends were on the edge of their seats the whole time.
Now that Niles won third place in the TOA challenge, he's qualified to move to the sandwich category in November. This will take place in Dallas and he will compete against 1,500 other chefs.
Niles will have to present one original sandwich, a French dip and then create a sandwich using an omega 3 sausage from one of the competition's sponsors. Right now, Niles said he is still brainstorming what original sandwich he will make.
"You have this real opportunity to take something that people probably eat almost everyday of their life for lunch and turn into something that would potentially give you the title of best sandwich in the world," Niles said.
If he wins the title of sandwich champion then Niles will win $10,000 and move on to the final table. If he wins the final table he'll win $100,000.
The President and CEO of the World Food Championship Mike McCloud said he thinks Shawn Niles has what it takes to do well.
"I think that he stands a good chance to not only bring home the sandwich top prize, but probably do very well at the final table," McCloud said.
Niles said Yakima has long been thought of as culinary wasteland and he wants to change that image through his food's recognition.
"Now we're ready to put Yakima on the map for food," Niles said. "We've got the best wine, the best beer, we have the most incredible produce and agriculture. everybody in the world needs to be able to see Yakima and understand Yakima for what it is and what we're capable of and what we are putting on the table."
McCloud shared that WFC is teaming up with Niles to bring something new with Yakima, however, details are still being finalized.
