PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF FOOD FIGHT 513
In 2016, Vineland, New Jersey, native Michael Inferrera moved to Cincinnati to work as a chef at Belterra Park. A month into living here, he participated in Food Fight 513, a type of underground Chopped featuring local hospitality workers. Back then, Maribelle’s Eat + Drink chef/owner Mike Florea and Leigh Enderle held it at their restaurant.
“I probably had a couple too many drinks beforehand,” Inferrera recalls. “I wasn’t levelheaded. I ended up breaking the oven door. It was a good competition.”
For the past year, he’s worked as chef de cuisine at Forno Osteria + Bar in Montgomery. Last year, he judged Food Fight with Florea. But he decided to compete again in the first of two events for 2024, which was held late last month in front of 300 people at the Tunnel Club inside TQL Stadium.
“I’m so happy I didn’t drink this year,” says Inferrera, who walked away the winner. “My mind was super clear. It felt amazing, and I kind of wish I was in that mindset years back.”
In 2023, chefs Kayla Robison and Christian Gill took over Food Fight 513 after Florea announced he and Enderle were bowing out in late 2022. In January’s iteration, they drew six names, and for the first two rounds paired the chefs up with a partner. Inferrera competed in the second round with Justin Askins, executive chef of Ripple Wine Bar, and competed alone in the third round.
“Both of you are trying to take this mystery basket and turn it into something ‘wow,’” Inferrera says. “It’s also trusting that person, somewhat knowing their skills. We had to turn it into a family meal. That was kind of fun because I’ve been a banquet chef. I’ve done a lot of different things with catering. When it comes to family meal, it’s just dressed up this hotel pan.”
He transformed chicken salad into chicken tacos and added Ancho chili, lotus root chips, and kimchi aioli.
“They also gave you fish jerky,” he explains. “Fish jerky was kind of a curve ball, but I ended up frying some julienne potato sticks and chopped up the fish jerky and used that as almost like an umami, like a nice finish on the taco.”
Inferrera felt the heat in the kitchen but kept a composed mindset despite audience members calling out his name.
“The first battle was kind of all the anxiety, all the nerves kind of all coming together,” he notes. “You have a teammate, so now it’s times 10. You have two people and you’re trying to bounce these ideas.”
His banquet training came in handy because he had to deal with timelines.
“If I hear 15 minutes, my head’s going, ‘Okay, I got four minutes to do this, three minutes to do that,’” he says. “I’m breaking down a timeline in my head. I started to be calmer at that point.”
For the third and final round, he had to assemble a non-dessert from snickerdoodles, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, creamer, halo-halo (a creamy, icy Filipino dessert), saffron, and the wild card, monkfish liver. His French training kicked in, and he treated the monkfish like foie gras and made a savory bread pudding out of the snickerdoodle, used the halo-halo to make a relish, and made a ring mold.
He’d be interested in channeling his food fight expertise into an appearance on Top Chef.
“It really breaks down what we do every day, and there’s a lot of different techniques on there,” he said. “I feel like that’s real life.”
And he wouldn’t mind appearing on Chopped.
“I think Chopped would be fun,” he says. “It’s ‘here goes some crazy stuff. Have fun.’”
At age 12, he knew he wanted to be a chef. “Growing up, there was a lot of food that we really couldn’t afford, and I wanted it,” he said. “I was a chunky kid. If I wanted Chinese and I couldn’t get Chinese, I tried to mock it. I was watching my grandmothers. Food came natural. Nothing else really came natural to me.”
He got his start working for casinos in Atlantic City, like a stint at Caesars. Pinnacle Entertainment recruited him to work at Belterra, then Miami Valley Gaming, and briefly at The Summit to gain experience working at weddings.
All his years of working in various food divisions ended up preparing him for the fight of his life. He won an MMA-style belt, which he gets to keep until he has to defend his title at the next Food Fight 513 event in August.
“Hopefully, I’ll take it back,” he says. “I would like to have the belt a second time because I feel like the competition got stronger and bigger over the years. It would be nice. But if not, it definitely was fun.”
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