{"id":197513,"date":"2026-04-14T23:28:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T23:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/197513\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T23:28:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T23:28:14","slug":"pearl-street-diner-bringing-back-cook-off-with-albany-officials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/197513\/","title":{"rendered":"Pearl Street Diner bringing back cook-off with Albany officials"},"content":{"rendered":"

Albany Mayor Dorcey Applyrs, Police Chief Brendan Cox and Albany County District Attorney Lee Kindlon will be paired with professional chefs in a cook-off on Saturday, April 25, at Pearl Street Diner in Albany. It is a fundraiser for Hive of Hope<\/a>, a support organization for sober living.<\/p>\n

Each official will be randomly paired with one of the participating chef-owners: Anthony Berghela of Anthony\u2019s by Romo\u2019s in Voorheesville and Romo\u2019s Pizza and Restaurant in Glenmont, Dylan Longton of Pretty Alright Breakfast Club in Voorheesville and Kizzy Williams of Allie B\u2019s Cozy Kitchen in Albany.<\/p>\n

Cooking consecutively, the teams will have 20 minutes to produce one brunch dish incorporating all of the ingredients in a mystery basket, with full access to the diner\u2019s pantry and kitchen equipment. Judges will include Melissa Fleischut, president and CEO of the New York State Restaurant Association, and Pat Fleming<\/a>, creator and host of the \u201cAnother Day, Another Diner\u201d video series. Steve Barnes of the Times Union will emcee and, if needed, judge.<\/p>\n

The creators of Cook-Off for a Cause, as it\u2019s being called, are Anthony and Lucia Mitsios, owners of Pearl Street Diner. Their first such event<\/a> was held in December 2023 with Albany Fire Chief Joseph Gregory, then-District Attorney David Soares and then-Police Chief Eric Hawkins. They cooked with members of their respective departments. The event raised more than $10,000 for the South End Children\u2019s Cafe<\/a> in Albany, which provides after-school programs and meals to local children and their families. The police team won by half a point.<\/p>\n

Lucia Mitsios said they hope to at least double the total in the second cook-off, with more than\u00a0$12,000 already pledged<\/a> via an online fundraising platform. While there will be an AV setup in the diner for spectators, space is limited, but the event will be live streamed on the fundraising page starting at 2 p.m. on April 25.<\/p>\n

Anyone interested in sponsoring the event or contributing in ways other than an online donation is asked to contact Lucia Mitsios through the diner\u2019s website<\/a>. Pearl Street Diner is at 40 N. Pearl St. It is open 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Albany Mayor Dorcey Applyrs, Police Chief Brendan Cox and Albany County District Attorney Lee Kindlon will be paired…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197514,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[30394,1070,844,610,9,11,10,49,51,50,821,31842],"class_list":["post-197513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-alco","tag-food","tag-latestnews","tag-local","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-restaurants","tag-table-hopping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}