There’s nothing that says summer like a juicy hot dog, and if you’ve had one of the specialty dogs at the Blue Rooster on Dana Street in the Old Port, you know the heights that hot-dogdom can reach.

Now the owners of Blue Rooster, Damian Sansonetti and Ilma Lopez, are taking things to a whole new level. To celebrate the first anniversary of the Blue Rooster, they’ve asked 13 great local cooks – most of them chefs from the city’s best restaurants – to develop a new dog every week for your summertime eating pleasure.

The chefs were asked to answer the question, through food, “What would you be if you were a hot dog?”

The guest chef du jour (du semaine?) will present his or her special hot dog creation in person at Blue Rooster on Friday night, then it will be served for the following week, along with the regular menu. The first chef, for example, will be Cara Stadler from Tao Yuan in Brunswick; her hot dog will premiere Friday, May 30 and be served through Thursday, June 5. And so on through the end of August, when the specialty dogs will go out with a bang – the final chef will be James Beard Award winner Rob Evans of Duckfat.

“We’re super blessed,” Lopez said. “I called them, and they’re like ‘OK.’ OK, like it was nothing. They were great.”

One of the participating chefs will be Matt Brown, who runs the Good Shepherd Food Bank food truck. Lopez and Sansonetti plan to donate a portion of the hot dog sales to the food bank.

So what kind of hot dogs are these chefs conjuring up? Lopez didn’t want to give too much away since they’d like customers to be surprised each week. But we do know that Jason Loring of Nosh Kitchen Bar (and soon-to-open Slab) will be doing an Apocalypse Dog. If it’s anything like his Apocalypse Now burger, which includes crispy pork belly, foie gras and smoked bacon, watch out.

We hear Five Fifty-Five chef Steve Corry, famous for his lobster mac-n-cheese, will be doing some kind of mac-n-cheese dog.

And David Levi, the chef/owner of Vinland, will be creating some kind of all-local corn dog.

Here is a complete list of participating chefs and the dates their dogs will premiere:

May 30: Cara Stadler, Tao Yuan

June 6: Ricky Penatzer, Portland Hunt and Alpine Club

June 13: Frederic Eliot, Petite Jacqueline

June 20: Steve Corry, Five Fifty-Five

June 27: Matt Brown, Good Shepherd Food Bank food truck

July 4: David Levi, Vinland

July 11: Erik Desjarlais, Weft & Warp Seamster, former chef at Evangeline

July 18: Jason Loring, Nosh Kitchen Bar

July 25: Mike Wiley, Hugo’s and Eventide Oyster Co.

Aug. 1: Joe Ricchio, Off the Wagon

Aug. 8: Andrew Taylor, Hugo’s and Eventide Oyster Co.

Aug. 15: Cheryl Lewis, El Rayo

Aug. 22: Rob Evans, Duckfat

Conctact Meredith Goad can be contacted at 791-6332 or at:

mgoad@pressherald.com

Twitter: MeredithGoad

 

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