The Rising

When Bruce Springsteen urged listeners to "Come on up for the rising..." he most certainly wasn't thinking of food, but that's exactly what was on the minds of the attendees at last night's Rising Stars Revue, sponsored by StarChefs. The walk-around tasting, held in the grand ballroom of the Mandarin Oriental hotel, in the Time Warner Center, was the closing event for the annual Chef's Congress, capping three days of eye-opening seminars for serious foodies, on everything from maple syrup to mixing cocktails. Fifteen heretofore uncelebrated chefs, mixologists and restaurateurs (relatively uncelebrated anyway) were honored during the evening's festivities, and to mark the occasion, each chose a signature dish to serve to the ready and eager crowd.

For more photos, click here.

The winners (all of whom are based in New York and all of whom are chefs, unless otherwise noted) were as follows:

Jamison Blankenship of Morimoto
Patrick Connolly of Bobo
George Mendes of Aldea
Jason Neroni of 10 Downing
Damian Sansonetti (pictured above, middle) of Bar Boulud
Isao Yamada of Upstairs at Bouley
Harold Dieterle of Perilla
Amanda Cohen of Dirt Candy
Colin Devlin of Dumont, Dumont Burger and Dressler (restaurateur)
Angelo Sosa of Xie Xie
Brooks Headley of Del Posto (pastry chef)
Robert Truit of Corton (pastry chef)
Maxwell Britton of Freemans (mixologist)
Orson Salicetti of Apothéke (mixologist)
Claire Paparazzo of Blue Hill (sommelier)
Brandon Kida of Asiate (host chef)