SEPTEMBER 8, 2025
Cooking for Community: Coterie Comes Together for Chef Showdown 2025
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Recently, Coterie Hudson Yards residents gathered in the Brass Room Restaurant, with its sweeping views of the Manhattan skyline, to take part in a spirited culinary competition.
Hosted by renowned restauranteur Rocco DiSpirito, the Chef Showdown 2025 event paired Coterie residents with award-winning chefs to craft original dishes using a shared secret ingredient––Wholesome Crave’s Chana Masala Cauliflower Soup. Coterie residents and their guests served as judges, sampling each team’s creation.
Chad Welch, Coterie’s own award-winning chef and culinary program developer, teamed up with Mary, a retired nurse and theater enthusiast, while James Beard Award-winning chef Michel Nischan partnered with Rita, a retired educator and lifelong New Yorker known in her family for her matzo ball soup. James Beard Award-winning chef and Food Network favorite Maneet Chauhan and retired physician Walter made up the third team for the Chopped-style cooking competition.
Nischan and Rita offered up a savory dish of jasmine rice, gochujang (Korean red pepper paste), and sautéed Gulf shrimp, using the Chana Masala Cauliflower Soup as a flavorful base.
Residents also loved Welch and Mary’s curried shrimp roll, with pickled vegetables, nasturtium petal mélange, and homemade papadum chips. The shrimp roll was served on a modified brioche bun, with a curry turmeric dressing and a variety of fresh garnishes.
But it was Chauhan and Walter who created the winning dish––a Walking Frito Pie served in a Fritos bag, featuring pork chili, mango mint chutney, pomegranate and mango slaw, queso fresco, Chana Masala Cauliflower Soup, and a creative use of edible flowers.
“This dish was inspired by Frito pies, which I discovered when I moved to the south,” Chauhan said. “Traditionally, Frito pies consist of a bag of Fritos with some chili in it. But we Indianized it, and it came out really delicious.”
When asked about the key to their victory, Chauhan said, “The way Walter took all his frustration out on the pomegranate. That was it.”
“Every time I hit the pomegranate, I looked at a different face in the audience,” Walter deadpanned.
The chefs and residents agreed that the best part of the friendly competition was the way it brought everyone together to share food and stories.
“This experience was absolutely wonderful,” Chauhan said. “Getting to work with Walter and getting his sense of humor and pizazz was so incredible. One of the reasons I got into cooking is because food is a language that breaks all barriers and brings people together. There was so much enthusiasm between the chefs, the residents, everyone in the room, and the excitement was really contagious.”
“I like to cook, but I’ve only really home cooked,” Walter added. “Learning how to get into the swing of things and be a sous-chef for a day was a lot of fun.”
The event was supported by Wholesome Crave, a plant-based soup company founded by Chef Nischan. “I wanted to create something that was not only good for people, but also good to them,” Nischan said.
“Soup is simple, but when it’s made with real, whole foods, it becomes powerful,” Nischan told Coterie residents as they sampled the Chef Showdown offerings. “Whole foods like vegetables, grains, and legumes are like the original medicine cabinet. They don’t just feed you. They heal you.”
In collaborating with Coterie, Wholesome Crave now brings the benefits of a plant-forward diet to the residents of Hudson Yards.
As the Chef Showdown demonstrated, plant-based ingredients lend themselves to delicious dishes shared with friends in a fun, communal atmosphere––even when everyone’s eating out of a Fritos bag. “If a dish makes you smile before you even taste it, you know it’s good,” Walter said. “And Fritos make me smile.”