Local chef and four-time Best of Hudson Valley 2015 winner Ric Orlando hopes to turn up the heat on the Food Network’s Beat Bobby Flay Thursday, November 5. Orlando, whom readers named this year’s “Best Chef” and whose establishments New World Bistro Bar and New World Home Cooking have been voted as the “Best Restaurant in Albany County,” “Best Restaurant in Ulster County,” and “Best Gluten-Free Cuisine,” respectively, faces off against self-taught chef Kiran Verma, Houston’s own “godmother of Indian fine dining.”
The winner of the duel has the opportunity to battle celebrity chef and TV show host Bobby Flay himself.
Though Orlando has home-field advantage — the episode was filmed in New York — and plenty of experience in front of the camera (he’s a Chopped champion), Verma should prove to be a formidable opponent. Twice nominated as My Table Magazine’s “Chef of the Year” (in 2010 and 2013), her eponymous restaurant has earned an “excellent” rating by both Zagat and Wine Spectator magazines for the past eight years.
Dubbed “It’s a Family Secret,” the episode airs at 10 p.m. on November 5 and again at 1 a.m. on November 6. Visit www.foodnetwork.com for more information.