Fiore's Ed Crochet Makes Philly Proud on Food Network's Chopped
By Abby DupesBy Abby Dupes|March 1, 2021|Food & Drink,
After watching his television cooking competition debut, we caught up with proud chef and owner of Fiore Fine Foods, Ed Crochet, to talk food, the final round and the future.
What was it like competing on Chopped? Competing on Chopped was great! The crew was incredibly professional and did a great job of taking care of all of our pandemic-related health concerns.
Was there an ingredient or dish that was especially hard? Our main ingredient throughout the competition was goat, which is a pretty tough ingredient for me—especially when they gave us the forequarter and whole leg of the animal. But, I am not a trained pastry chef, so the dessert round was easily the most difficult for me.
How did you prepare before going on the show? My exceptional wife and uber-talented pastry chef, Justine, and I went over a number of recipes in the days and weeks before the competition, but because I didn't take enough time to practice ahead of time, I was unable to execute the dessert round well during filming. But that's okay—something to practice for my next televised cooking competition.
Congratulations on your success! What was it like to win? Winning felt great! This is a difficult time for us and all of my peers in the industry and winning the competition and the cash prize that comes with it is definitely helpful. I'm grateful to have had the opportunity and am proud to have brought the prize home for Fiore and for Philly.
Anything new with Fiore? We just began selling gelato by the pint at all of the Di Bruno Bros. locations and continue to sell gelato, pastries and breakfast sandwiches at Fiore on the weekends. We also have been offering weekend take-home dinners exploring different regions of Italy each week. The response to our takeaway offerings has been really fantastic and has kept us afloat, so we hope to keep that going for a while longer. fiore-finefoods.com