KC Flavor Champion: Christopher Delissio

Togarashi-Crusted Watermelon with Spicy Hoisin-Honey Chili Crunch Sauce & Pickled Watermelon Rind, the dish that earned Christopher Delissio a golden ticket to Dubai in early 2026, has its roots in two other concepts the chef crafted for Kitchen Collaborative 2025. “Separately, I was working on a togarashi-crusted salmon, as well as a Tajín-dusted watermelon,” recounts the corporate executive chef at Intermountain Health. “All of the ingredients for both those dishes were on the table, and I decided to mix and match from the two to create one more plate.”

The culinary amalgamation was selected a winner by the National Watermelon Promotion Board, one of the sponsors for this year’s menu ideation program. The dish also features sponsored products from Kikkoman and Lee Kum Kee and was originally plated on tableware from sponsor Libbey.

This is a particularly appropriate time of year to showcase watermelon as a versatile, high-impact ingredient. The fruit is in season across much of the country throughout the summer, and July is officially National Watermelon Month. Delissio’s concept is a next-level demonstration of its potential to surprise and delight.

For this dish, the chef started by cutting cubes of watermelon and dicing the rind, seeking a precise elegance for the presentation. “I had to brush up on my knife skills for this one,” he notes. The cubes are dusted with savory and spicy togarashi and then briefly seared to produce a crust. A square is placed at the center of a plate, followed by a generous drizzle of a hoisin-honey-chili crisp sauce. The watermelon rind dice is pickled in a medium of white balsamic vinegar, salt, sugar, allspice, pink peppercorns and water, and then is sprinkled across the dish, along with a garnish of crystallized ginger.

“I love tuna poke dishes and wanted to use the watermelon in that fashion,” explains Delissio. “Its color and appearance resemble tuna, so it can be a fun bit of ‘magic’ for diners. It’s a versatile fruit that gives such a great, meaty look and texture when cooked.” He also finds that pickles are another element that bring a flavor surprise when added to a concept.

The chef details the experience of a bite: “Sweet and spicy are the initial flavors. A bit of tang from the pickled watermelon rind and a pungency from the ginger come through on the back end, along with the savory hints of sesame found in the togarashi and the hoisin. The sweet-spicy sauce of hoisin, honey and chili crisp furthers the flavor theme.” He imagines the dish could be served as an appetizer or even a dessert. He considers it the embodiment of yin-yang complements. “It’s juicy and crunchy. Sweet and spicy. Hot and cold.”

Delissio also presented this concept with a purposeful nod to influences from modern art. “Food is many things, including art. I love museums of all kinds and recently saw some cubist paintings that I thought would be even more impactful in 3-D, so to speak,” he reflects. “That influence played into my ongoing desire to hone my knife skills and be one with my blade. The watermelon gave me a chance to make the cut and create the art.”

INVIGORATING THE SCENE

Kitchen Collaborative 2025 is a fresh iteration of the menu ideation program created in 2020 by Summit F&B in partnership with Flavor & The Menu. Concepts submitted by participating chefs like Delissio were judged blindly by sponsor teams, who evaluated descriptions, photos and other relevant information. This approach appealed to him. “I’m not normally one for competitions, per se,” he admits. “But I do love experimenting and coming up with new ideas on my own schedule. So, when I saw that this competition was not performative but rather fully immersive and intentional, I knew it was for me. Plus, the blind judging made it fair and beyond reproach.“

Delissio valued the opportunity to “spend time with each ingredient.” He views activities like Kitchen Collaborative as aids in combatting burnout. “It keeps me engaged, as a chef, in the foundation of what we do, getting creative juices flowing and broadening my perspectives, which can sometimes narrow a bit through the lens of my work environment,” he says, noting that some ideas from this experience “will likely find their way on to upcoming catering menus.”

As one of the winning chefs, Delissio is over the moon about the opportunity to journey with Flavor & The Menu and Summit F&B to Dubai in January to attend Gulfood 2026. “I have never really travelled abroad, so the whole experience will be exciting! I’m ecstatic to be able to observe the local cuisine and ingredients and immerse myself in the culinary culture,” he says.

MORE INSPIRED TAKES

Delissio set himself the personal challenge of highlighting each of the sponsored products featured in Kitchen Collaborative 2025. With that intention as table stakes, here are two additional examples of how he upped the culinary ante through this program.

Pipette with Smoked Salmon and Sage Cream Sauce 

For this dish, featuring products from Barilla and Real California Milk, Delissio’s vision was to create a seafood twist on pasta carbonara. He found the smoke and cure of the salmon to be a resonant stand-in for the bacon or pancetta typically included in a carbonara. Other elements of the dish continued this flavor narrative. “The Point Reyes blue cheese is on point—pun intended,” he says. “It’s creamy, with a pleasing amount of pungency and just a little crumbly. And I love the shape of this Barilla pasta. The one crimped end of the hollow tube allows it to hold sauce well, and the size is perfect for a fork or spoon.” In the photo above, the dish is plated on tableware from Libbey.

The most impactful flavor differentiator in this dish may be found in Delissio’s use of sage—first, to amplify the sauce, as well as in the inclusion of a fried sage garnish. “Sage is an herb that isn’t highlighted enough, in my opinion. I think it’s under-utilized outside of the winter holiday season, and too often it is a background note. But it plays really well with smoked dishes, so it’s a good complement to the smoked salmon,” he notes. Other components of the dish include sautéed radicchio, peas, a charred artichoke heart, red onions and dill.

“This pasta dish feels particularly inventive because it brings three big flavors—smoked salmon, sage and blue cheese—together in a way that never overpowers or overwhelms,” says Delissio. He admits to a touch of imposter syndrome. “Sometimes, dishes feel like they’ve all been done before, by someone else at some other time. But this is one that felt really unique to me.”

Chilled Lentil and Pickled Vegetable Salad with Rosemary-Preserved Lemon-Aged Sherry Vinaigrette

Although Delissio admits to only “moderate” experience with lentils throughout his culinary career, he set a personal goal to use every Kitchen Collaborative sponsored product as an ingredient in at least one dish. He believes his foundational passion as a chef comes with the responsibility “to try, taste, touch and use as many items as I can in as many different ways possible.”

To that end, the chef set about employing the multiple varieties of lentils he received from Lentils.org in this elegant salad offering. “I had always used lentils in hot dishes, but I wanted to go a different way, so naturally, cold came to mind,” he says. The other inspirations for this salad build were rooted in the impact of two professional mentors. “I have had so many amazing chefs to learn from, but this dish really was born from the influence of two, in particular. One loved pickles and pickling, and another loved using sherry vinaigrette. This salad was a way for me to apply some of the lessons I learned from them.”

The result is a master class in flavor and textural contrasts. “The main flavors are tangy, sweet and savory. There’s a slight bitterness and pepperiness from a bed of radicchio and arugula that also plays well here,” he notes. Some of the veggies were pickled in white balsamic, but Delissio used saffron to pickle turnips and produce “a unique flavor highlight.” The lentils bring in savory and earthy notes, he reports, while their softer texture is a welcome respite from the crunchy crisp of all the pickled vegetables. “Finally, the rich, complex, bright flavor of the rosemary-preserved-lemon-aged sherry vinaigrette blends it all together perfectly. It’s refreshing and packed with bold flavors,” he concludes.

As Delissio is still in touch with his mentors via social media, they are likely to see this homage to their influence on his professional success. “As chefs, our relationships are forged through the fires of the kitchen—and they are never broken,” he says.

Flavor & The Menu will continue to feature profiles of each chef behind the 12 winning menu concepts of Kitchen Collaborative 2025 throughout the year.

Kitchen Collaborative Project Management: Summit F&B
Togarashi-Crusted Watermelon with Spicy Hoisin-Honey Chili Crunch Sauce & Pickled Watermelon Rind photo: Photography: otysonphoto.com // Food Styling: Peg Blackley