The Annual Championship BBQ & Cookout celebrated its 20th and it was bigger and better than ever.

Fourteen of Chicago’s top chefs faced off over grills on Sunday, May 21 at the Chicago Illuminating Company during the NRA show in Chicago. They fed close to a thousand of the industry’s leading chefs and operators. And it was all for a good cause-- World Central Kitchen, an international organization led by chef José Andrés, which uses its network of world-renowned chefs to find sustainable solutions to end world hunger and the Greater Chicago Food Depository, Chicago’s food bank, which distributes the equivalent of 160,000 meals daily.

Barbara Mathias, former Food Arts publisher, founded the event two decades ago and continues to produce it along with her colleague Beverly Stephen, former executive editor of Food Arts. We were excited to welcome Food News Media, publisher of FSR and QSR magazines, as our media partner. You will be reading much deserved coverage for our amazing chefs both in their print publications and online.

Hats off to the roster of champion chefs who donated their time and talents: Tony Priolo, Stephen “Smokey” Schwartz, Jimmy Bannos, Marcos Ascencio, Marcos Flores, David Chapman and Joe Frillman, Christine Ciwoski and Josh Kulp, Aaron Lirette, James Lintleman, John Manion, John Coletta, Cory Morris, Martial Nougier, Derek Campbell.

And a big vote of thanks to all our sponsors: Ajinomoto Windsor, Beam Suntory, Bigelow Tea, Chefwear, Constellation Brands, Easy Ice, Fever-Tree, Frost 321, Hewlett Packard, Jade Range, Johnsonville, The Perfect Purée, Smithfield, Sterno Products, Sweet Street, Taylor Shellfish, Unilever Food Solutions, VerTerra.