Students who entered the Wolves’ Den between 5:30 and 7:30 p.m. Wednesday faced a different situation from the usual smell of fried chicken fingers and the dining room full of students chatting about their day.

Instead, the poignant aromas of dishes such as pecan-stuffed pork tenderloin with an orange marmalade and pork braciolette with a blackberry sauce wafted in the air as the 2007 Chef’s Challenge was officially underway.

Teams in the challenge consisted pairs of chefs who hailed from the three dining halls on campus and one team that represented the Vaughn Towers football stadium catering crew.

Student Senator John Mickey was a “celebrity” judge who brought a student’s perspective to the competition and thought it was good for the chefs to compete with one another.

“It’s really cool to have staff chefs compete and gives them great ideas for creativity. It’s great for the servability of the dining halls,” he said.

The competition allowed the contestants 15 minutes for organization, five minutes for setup, 60 minutes for cooking, five minutes for plate preparation and five minutes for cleanup. Competitors had to prepare four plates using pork as the main ingredient. Each plate needed two side dishes and at least one sauce, according to the rules.

One student who came for the competition was Wyatt Long, a second-year student in the Agricultural Institute majoring in ornamentals and landscape technology.

“I came because of the advertisements and better-than-average food,” Long said.

Long had his own prediction before the competition, which turned out in the end to be an incorrect one.

“Dude, Fountain’s got it,” he said. “They’re my breakfast crew.”

After an hour and a half of hectic work, the panel of judges, which ranged from three professional chefs to WRAL news anchor Bill Leslie and Mickey, chose the winner by a very close score after some deliberation.

Executive Catering Chef Mack Bell and his assistant, David McLaughlin, from Vaughn Towers took home the top honors. The winning dish the two prepared was a pork braciolette with a blackberry sauce, spicy turner potatoes, rustic vegetables and wilted spinach.

Chef Bell credited his blackberry sauce and crispy simple veggies for the victory, but was worried that the complexity of his dish might cost his team the victory.

“There were six components to the dish, and we thought that might be a problem,” Bell said.

While some of the teams struggled with the time limit and scrambled to put their dishes together as time expired, Bell thought he and McLaughlin were well prepared.

“We were done about five minutes early. We kept it simple, worked well as a team and divided the labor between us,” Bell said.

The judges made their decisions based on criteria that alloted points for several aspects of the dish, such as creativity, taste, organization, presentation, technique and dining hall compatibility.

Daniel Scott Shurr, executive chef at the Second Empire Restaurant and Tavern and former top graduate from the Culinary Institute of America, observed the chefs as they prepared their dishes.

“I’m looking for taste, presentation, if [the dish] makes sense and whether or not it will work in the [dining halls],” Shurr said.

Shurr said he has judged the competition three times and said one important criterion for him was enthusiasm.

“If people are enthusiastic about the food, I think the food will be good in the dining halls,” he said.

Leslie, who returned for the second year in a row, said he focused on something else.

“I’m kind of the ordinary judge,” he said. “I’ll leave the expert qualities to the expert judges and I’ll judge mainly on taste. From the smell, I can tell it’s going to be good.”

Mickey gave the student body a representative on the judging panel, but also called upon his own kitchen experience when judging the competition.

“My father was a chef, and I’ve worked in the kitchen since the age of 12,” he said.

Although chef Yves Ruiz and chef supervisor Marsha Strickland, the representatives for Fountain, didn’t win, it didn’t stop Long from rooting for his favorite duo.

Long made his motives for supporting the Fountain team clear.

“I’m rooting for Fountain because they won’t let me in Case.”