Eat All The Pork This Sunday At Cochon555

By Anthony Todd in Food on Apr 19, 2017 7:50PM

Dishes at last year's Cochon Heritage BBQ. Photo by Galdones Photography.

If you love pork, bacon, wine, desserts, ramen or tartare, the perfect event for you is this Sunday, April 23, as Cochon555 returns to Chicago for another year.

This massive pork festival brings together some of Chicago's best chefs and heritage meat farmers for an act of collective gluttony that isn't matched by many other events. The primary event, the pork competition, pits five Chicago chefs against one another. Each chef has to use a heritage pig from a local farm to create six different dishes, which are ranked by expert judges. The winner becomes the "prince of pork," and gets a slot in the national Cochon555 competition, which this year will also be held in Chicago.

This year, the competitors include:

Chef Ricardo Jarquin of Travelle Kitchen + Bar
Chef John Manion of El Che Bar
Chef Nathan Sears of theWit Hotel Chicago
Chef Tom Carlin of Publican Quality Meats
Chef Pete Coenen of Cherry Circle Room

In addition to tasting the competing dishes (and casting some "people's choice" ballots of their own), guests get to drink a ton of different wines, enjoy a pop-up butcher shop from The Butcher & Larder, check out a ramen bar from Chef Cory Morris (Ronero), a tartare bar from Jason Vincent (Giant) and a dessert bar from Chon Reynoso (City Winery). Bars for everything!

Tickets are $125 for general admission and $200 VIP (you get in an hour earlier and access to some exclusive drinking). They're available here. May the best pig chef win!