Executive Chef Scott Lahey & Pastry Chef Jennifer Chambers Win Gold & Silver Awards from Convention Industry Council

Scott Lahey, Executive Chef at North Maple Inn in Basking Ridge, and Jennifer Chambers, North Maple's Pastry Chef, have been honored with Gold and Silver Awards in the first annual APEX Food & Beverage Challenge competition hosted by the Convention Industry Council, based in McLean, Virginia.

Chef Lahey, who is the recipient of numerous other culinary accolades, won the Gold Award in the competition's Appetizer category with his Asian-influenced entry of "Ponzu Marinated Tuna Won Ton." He won a Silver Award in the Entrée category for savory "Crispy Salmon with Smoked Tomato Broth and Roasted Portobello Mushroom."

Pastry Chef Chambers won the Gold Award in the Dessert category for her elegant entry of "Vanilla Pepper Brulee with Port Poached Fig and Balsamic Reduction."

The international competition is to be held annually to recognize and support the development of accepted best practices within the food and beverage industry through the Accepted Practice Exchange (APEX), which disseminates culinary educational information on the winning entries to members around the globe.

Scott Lahey is Executive Chef at North Maple Inn at Basking Ridge. A remarkably talented and experienced Chef, Mr. Lahey has cooked for diplomats, ambassadors and Olympians, and has been employed as chef at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, Peacock Alley at the Waldorf=Astoria in New York, and for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. He is a former commissioned officer in the United States Army, and served in Desert Storm as a Captain in command of a 212-paratrooper company. He holds a culinary degree from the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco.

Jennifer Chambers is Pastry Chef for the North Maple Inn. In this position she is responsible for overseeing a full service pastry department, which serves the Inn's restaurant, lounge and banquet operations, as well as group and VIP functions. Ms. Chambers has extensive expertise in working with chocolate confections and specialty items such as wedding and Torah cakes. She is a graduate of The Culinary Institute of America, located in Hyde Park, New York, where she majored in Baking and Pastry Arts. She is a member of Women Chefs and Restaurateurs through The Culinary Institute of America.

North Maple Inn at Basking Ridge offers 171 well-appointed guestrooms with 16 spacious suites. The hotel offers Coasters, a casual lounge; Cuisine, a restaurant serving internationally inspired fare in an open-hearth kitchen; an elegant ballroom; and 20,000 square feet of event and meeting space. North Maple Inn provides complete fitness and recreation facilities for guests. The property, which was built in 1995 and comprehensively renovated in 2000, is one of the finest hotels in New Jersey.

North Maple Inn is managed by Benchmark Hospitality International, an independent hospitality management company based in The Woodlands (Houston), Texas. Benchmark operates resorts, conference centers and hotels both domestically and internationally.

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Date Listed: 2005-01-26

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Industry: Restaurants
Category: Awards
Benchmark Hospitality
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