Winners from 2015 Fungus Face-off at Big Sur Foragers Festival.

There are so many awards to spread around nine worthy chefs at the Big Sur Foragers Festival's Fungus Face-Off cookout it can feel a little like a little league banquet, where even lil' Wally gets a most improved award and everyone leaves with something.

But on a Saturday like this weekend's—where at least four or five dishes had most everybody buzzing and the weather was as golden as the chanterelles—all in attendance felt like, yes, winners.

Here's how the hardware was distributed, with some quick notes on what it tells us about its creator.

Most Creative Use of Ingredients • Porters in the Forest 

Johnny De Vivo has been telling people his progressive food certainly doesn't say "typical golf course fare" (Porter's overlooks Poppy Hills), and here he showed it, with five different mushrooms delicately prepared five different ways—including pickled black trumpet, smoked hedgehogs and grilled chanterelles—with a puff of roasted marshmallow foam on top. A smart and technically dynamic dish that might've won best in show if the judges were chefs.

Dish with Most Complex Flavors • TusCA Ristorante

A year into his tenure in Monterey, Exec Chef Steve Johnson apparently decided to use the Face-Off as his coming out party, drawing lines that lasted 20 minutes and dwarfed every other table's as he dished no fewer than 250 scallops in an electrifying curry-mushroom sauce. 

Most Artistic Presentation, Best in Show • Montrio Bistro

Longtime local star chef Tony Baker told the crowd he and his team had some fun inventing this dish, another well worth the wait in line. On top of a black trumpet mushroom tartlet, they dolloped foie gras parfait and crowned it with a super-crisp piece of shaved and dehydrated Baker's Bacon. 

Dish Most Easily Adapted to Home Cooking • Beach House at Lovers Point

This was the weirdest choice from judges Russ Parsons (of Los Angeles Times) and Mike Hale (of KRML's "Food Fodder"): tabbing a wild mushroom pot sticker with homemade shells as easiest to make. Maybe they were thinking the Trader Joe's frozen gyoza. New Beach House Exec Chef Evan Lite didn't mind, calling the award, "The beginning of a new future at the Beach House."

Most Nutritious and Healthy Dish • Big Sur Roadhouse

Exec Chef Brendan Essons did three different creative elixirs to earn this nod, including a wild-sorrel tonic and a huckleberry spring water. He told me the Roadhouse has overhauled its menu, steering away from its Cajun days of old toward homier and more affordable fare.

Best Vegetarian Dish • Esalen Institute

The healers of the South Coast did a formidable representation of the food that's defined them for decades, a chanterelle arancini with a nice frisee salad—totally veg, but totally indulgent.

Best Use of Local Ingredients • Ventana Inn

About a year into his time at Ventana, Executive Chef Paul Corsentino used his home-court advantage to score the cherriest corner of the beautiful deck and matched its majesty with a candy-cap-dough ravioli stuffed with chanterelles. Superb.

Best Table Display • Big Sur Bakery

Jacob and Fiona Pilarsky took their time ahead of the event designing a lush spread of mushrooms and native foliage and crafting a basket of premade mushpuppies that went fast. Strategic play by the brand-new parents, as that let them spend more time mingling with their infant rather than hustling over hot plates.

Best Cooking Technique • Fernwood Grill

The most exotic approach to foraged fungi proved a mushroom terrine in a light mushroom gravy from the folks at Fernwood.

Best Dish Using Wine, People's Choice • Carmel Valley Ranch

Exec Chef Tim Wood couldn't attend because of the funeral of his father, but his team wowed with a simple bit of amazing: slow-braised short rib on crostini with earthy truffle shaved on top. That's the second People's Choice win in a row for the underrated kitchen team at the lodge, where they do progressive, organic, rustic fare with sophisticated technique and honeys, salts and produce from on property.