ORANGE BEACH – Chef Kyle Ogden already earned a reputation for his culinary skills in the Tennessee Valley, and now his seafood prowess is known throughout Alabama.
Ogden, a chef at neighborhood bistro Odette in downtown Florence and Huntsville’s MidCity, along with sous chef Taylor Bradley on Monday took top honors at the Alabama Seafood Cook-Off.
With the first-place finish at The Wharf in Orange Beach, Ogden and Bradley earned a spot in the Great American Seafood Cook-Off in New Orleans this summer.
The winning dish at the Alabama beach contest?
“Stuffed pompano with a shrimp and crab mousse and focaccia stuffing,” Ogden told 256 Today. “We did it up with a little bit of arugula pesto from (Florence’s) Kodachrome Gardens and some agrodolce gai lan, which is Chinese broccoli. We’re really fortunate to have Kodachrome Gardens in our area. They produce a lot of really, really great produce for us.’’
The winning dish, titled “Spring Tide,” came with a $2,500 prize.
Ogden succeeds Chef Brody Olive of Voyagers at Perdido Beach Resort. Olive won last year’s state competition, then went on to win the 2023 Great American Seafood Cook-Off. Olive was the second Alabama chef to win that competition after Jim Smith of The Hummingbird Way in Mobile, who won in 2011.
Ogden was one of four finalists in the state competition. The other finalists and their dishes were: Emilo Urban of CoastAL Orange Beach, whose “Fruits of the Gulf” featured spiced Gulf shrimp; Robbie Nicolaisen of The Hound in Auburn, whose dish combined “Triggerfish, Wahoo, crab and more;” and Laurence Agnew of Villaggio Grille at The Wharf with a dish titled “King Billy Whelkomes You” featuring “Charcoal Alabama Croaker and a Gulf Whelk and Admiral Oyster stew.”
Finalists were chosen based on anonymous recipe submissions, according to Alabama Gulf Seafood. Dishes prepared in a timed, head-to-head competition are judged in five categories: Presentation, general impression and serving methods; creativity and practicality; composition and harmony of ingredients; correct preparation and craftsmanship; flavor, taste and texture.
Ogden went to the beach ready to absorb ideas from other chefs.
“It was really, really great kind of seeing some of the stuff that the other guys did,” he said. “Emilio and Chelsea from (CoastAL Orange Beach) had a really, really cool dish with this fish floss that they were doing. So that was an interesting technique that I kinda picked their brains about afterward.”
Ogden’s culinary plans for the Big Easy will be similar to the blueprint at Orange Beach.
“It’s gonna be mostly the same,” he said. “Our produce and plate-up will be a little bit different, but we’re definitely gonna ride with the pompano and the shrimp and crab mousse and the casa stuffing part.”
For more details, visit eatalabamaseafood.com.
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