Welcome to Table Talk, where The Daily Memphian writers and editors send the latest food news — along with a dash of this and that — directly to your inbox every Wednesday.

Memphis may not be a food city in the same way that Paris is or Barcelona is or New York or even Las Vegas is. (My apologies if you disagree.)

But when the World Food Championships kick off in Indianapolis next month, a large contingent of Memphians will be among the 288 teams competing.

And even though the competition includes 12 categories, including vegetarian, rice, bacon and noodle, Memphis’ background with barbecue has been key to the local competitors. 

“It’s pretty much the elite, the best of the best,” said Michelle O’Guin of the event. She’s competing in the “live fire” category while her husband, Brandon, competes in the seafood category. Their son is also cooking in the new junior competition this year. 

But they started with barbecue. 

All told, there are 20 teams competing in each category. Each team competes within its category on the first day, with the winners advancing to a final round during the November tournament. Category winners take home $10,000 and a shot at winning $150,000 in The Final Table, an all-category competition next spring. 

The O’Guins, Geoff Maynard, Lance Gehring, Tommy Shive, Lisa Gwatney and Josee Chalut are all locals competing this year. Gwatney, whose competing in the noodles division, won the sixth annual World Food Championships in 2018, earning $100,000 for a Wagyu ribeye with an Amarone reduction sauce. 

O’Guin and Maynard, who also cooks in the live fire division, both scored perfect scores in the opening round last year. 

In last year’s second round, they went head to head, with Maynard finishing first and O’Guin finishing second. 

“You get 90 minutes,” O’Guin said. “There’s no pre-seasoning, no pre-chopping. It comes down to the final countdown sometimes. Time can get away from you. 

“I made top five last year, and I cried. ... Then you have to go back to the store and get ingredients for the next round.” 

Like O’Guin, Maynard began competitive cooking with barbecue. He entered his first competition about 15 years ago and started a catering company since then. 

“Catering got me into a different type of cooking,” he said. “It’s what I might call more bougie cooking.” 

He said he also started getting more into high-end cuisine, eating at different five-star restaurants during business trips and becoming more interested in flavor profiles. 

When he went to his first world food championships two years ago, he competed in bacon. 

“We won our first golden ticket at the first qualifier we competed at, in Lebanon, Tennessee,” Maynard said. 

Lance Gehring also got his start in competition cooking with barbecue; four families who went to the same church and met through their children began doing backyard cooking competitions together. 

“I used to do triathlons before the kids were born,” Gehring said. 

Gehring is the head chef on his team because he’s the one who likes playing around with different recipes. 

He and his team are now in their 18th season. While they may have started out slowly, he said, they ramped up after their kids went off to college. In 2013, they started doing 10 to 12 competitions a year; in the past two years, they’ve done about 15 a year. This year, after a competition in Georgia this upcoming weekend, they’ll be up to 17. 

Maynard estimated he does about 10 to 15 competitions a year, or about 10 hours a week, every week, per year. 

The local chefs said they do cooking competitions for a number of different reasons: the social aspect, the thrill of winning and a passion for food. 

“As we get older, we get less competitive at sports,” Brandon O’Guin said. 

Gehring echoed that, saying the contests are a great way to satisfy a need for competition. 

“It’s a lot of work, but it’s fun,” Gehring said. 

This Week on Memphis’ restaurant scene

Maciel’s Taqueria located at 3397 Summer Ave. is open noon-10:30 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays and noon-11 p.m. Fridays-Sundays. (Joshua Carlucci/Special to The Daily Memphian)

The newest restaurant from Maciel’s Tortas & Tacos owner Manuel Martínez opened last week. The restaurant, while still a Maciel’s, is a little different from Martínez’s other two locations, in that it’s a taqueria instead of tortas and tacos. And, as Josh Carlucci writes of the Summer Avenue restaurant, it’s “flaunting its street-food swagger with an extensive offering of all things meat and tortillas.”

The sun rises beyond the 120 gasoline pumps outside a Buc-ee’s store early April 4 in Johnstown, Colo. A Buc-ee’s is set to open in West Memphis, Arkansas. (David Zalubowski/AP file)

This may not seem like a food story — or maybe you’ve had the brisket sandwich or the beaver nuggets before and it does. Hot on the heels of Buc-ee’s announcing it will open a location in Fayette County, the company is also now planning to open one of its destination travel centers in West Memphis. Jane Roberts has all the details here, including where exactly the Buc-ee’s will go. 

After several years of classes, Bari Ristorante e Enoteca owner Rebecca Severs became one of only 409 Italian Wine Ambassadors worldwide — and only one in both Memphis and Tennessee. So, her recent certification should place Memphis on the map as a destination for Italian wine aficionados, but she’s already pretty happy with Bari’s wine list. 

Schuyler O’Brien (left) and Scott Tashie (right) at the new City Silo location in East Memphis in former McAlister’s Deli near the Malco Theatres Paradiso Cinema Grill & IMAX. (Sophia Surrett/The Daily Memphian)

The new City Silo Table + Pantry is expected to open late next month in a former East Memphis McAlister’s Deli near the Malco Theatres Paradiso Cinema Grill & IMAX. Most of the menu is being kept secret until the restaurant’s opening, but Sophia Surrett was able to learn info about a new whipped feta and carrot dip, a Southwest salad and potentially a new omelet. Surrett also reported that South Main Street’s Ibis Cocktail Bar has closed and that Teriyaki Madness will open in Cordova. 

For this week’s $10 deal, Carlucci highlighted Cafe Eclectic’s perfectly cooked sunny-side up eggs. He likes them over a hash of russet potatoes diced and fried crispy alongside bell peppers and onions and topped with bacon, jalapenos and yellow and white cheddar cheese. But the restaurant also has a grits bowl with Delta Grind yellow stone-ground Mississippi corn grits that he thinks is delicious.

Lastly, Holly Whitfield sat down with Knifebird and The Public Bistro owner Kate Ashby to talk about the two concepts and what she hoped to offer the neighborhoods with the restaurants. 

.....