Todd English's Mozzarella Challenge Hits Da Campo Osteria

​Todd English's Da Campo Osteria in the Il Lugano Hotel is known for its table-side mozzarella. What exactly is table-side mozzarella? It's when a chef comes out of the kitchen with a bowl of warm curd, dons a pair of rubber gloves, and literally hand-pulls fresh mozzarella for you table-side. It's an interesting adaptation of the whole table-side guacamole phenomenon, which has become so vast (and frankly annoying) that some restaurants are even trying out table-side mixology.

Now, Da Campo Osteria wants to take the mozzarella away from its chefs and put it in your hands. Well, sort of. The restaurant is holding a contest called "What's Your Mozz?" to find the best home recipe for mozzarella in South Florida.

Through July 15, home chefs are invited to e-mail their top mozzarella recipes to mozzarellarecipe@hs-pr.com. Da Campo Executive Chef Joshua Hedquist will then choose ten top entrants to participate in a food fair on August 16, where each recipe will be pitted against each other in front of a panel of VIP judges. Mozzarella will be sampled with abandon until the judges have whittled down the finalists to three (this is getting complicated). And it's those three that will go in front of the Big Cheese himself, Todd English, who will choose one to be featured on the Da Campo menu for an entire month.Phew!

The recipes can be anything really, so long as they include mozzarella in the mix. So your recipe could be a killer fresh mozz pizza, or a crazy mozzarella stuffed burger, or even a fresh mozzarella salad. The combinations are only limited by your forearm strength.

Now get pulling!