Chefs licking their chops for annual gridiron battle

Chefs Jose Garces and Marc Vetri rule the Philadelphia restaurant scene.

But who is better? Who is No. 1?

We may never know in the kitchen, or with a waffle iron, but we find out on Thanksgiving where it counts - on the gridiron.

Staff from the Garces restaurants (Amada, Tinto, Distrito, Chifa, etc.) will play the Vetri restaurants (Vetri, Osteria, Amis) in their third annual Thanksgiving Turkey Bowl.

Because this is the rubber match, tied 1-1, the football game will be played at historic Franklin Field.

Garces vs. Vetri.

Spain vs. Italy.

Or, at least, Spanish food vs. Italian food.

Kickoff is 9 a.m.

"Marc and I have always had a natural competitive spirit between us." Garces said. "We've maintained a pretty close friendship throughout the years. There's always been some underlying competitive juices just from a restaurant-to-restaurant and chef-to-chef kind of thing. This is may be one way to settle the score on the field as opposed to in the kitchen."

The game is all in good fun, with many friends among the rival restaurant staffs.

But Thursday morning the aprons come off.

Think of the Vetri squad not as featherweight gnocchi but wood-roasted goat.

And the Garces gang not as toothpick-skewered dainty tapas but a hefty haunch of black-footed Iberian ham.

Last year, a chef de cuisine for Garces, Natalie Maronski of Chifa, was killing the Vetri team. Late in the game, she came across the middle on a pass play, and Vetri himself "laid her out," said Garces.

"I hardly even touched her," said Vetri. "I think she acted out the whole fall. It was really fun. The sidelines were screaming. After the game I went over. We made up. I hugged her."

"I did not hit you that hard," he said to her.

"Sure. Whatever, chef," she told him.

Garces grew up in Chicago playing a neighborhood Turkey Bowl game on Thanksgiving mornings. Vetri grew up in Abington and played Thanksgiving morning stickball on the streets of South Philly before turkey at his grandparents'. When he moved to Los Angeles in his early 20s, away from family, he converted to and loved Thanksgiving morning football.

As busy celebrity chefs now, with young families, both missed the Thanksgiving ritual. They were at a benefit for autism a few years ago and went out for a beer after, got to talking, and the Turkey Bowl was born.

The first Turkey Bowl was played on a field behind Eastern State Penitentiary.

"It was like pretty hairy," recalled Garces. "I think one of the prison walls was the out-of-bounds line. There were a couple manhole covers right on the field. It was intense. It came down to the last play of the game. We were going in for a tying score, and we were two yards out, and they deflected the ball. My quarterback audibled on the line. It was hard-fought, more like a Steelers-Ravens grind-it-out game as opposed to a West Coast offense situation."

Vetri knows his NFL, too. After the Eagles lost to the Cardinals, he tweeted, "Eggles just got served scrambled :-( ."

Their game last Thanksgiving was played on a field at the Waring School, 19th and Mount Vernon. But there was controversy about whether one team actually "touched" the other on several plays.

This year, Vetri decided to escalate from touch football to flag football. He has even lined up two referees,

For the last five Sundays, both teams have practiced at Waring. Sometimes they scrimmaged. On Oct. 2, after Vetri forces were routed, Vetri, tongue firmly in cheek, posted on Facebook: "Any ex football players looking for short-term jobs in the restaurant industry, please call. You can work until one day after Thanksgiving."

Brad Spence, the chef at Amis, played high school football, so he's the Vetri captain. He sees being a chef and football coach as similar if not identical. "It's all about motivation, leadership, getting your people charged up to do their best, whether it's every night or every play," he said.

He's had trouble, however, getting young players to practice.

"People think that 9 a.m. is the crack of dawn," said Spence. "Some servers and cooks act like it's 4 o'clock in the morning. They're out partying until 2 a.m."

Oddsmakers in Las Vegas do not have a line on this game, but Garces has a bartender at Distrito, Obi Amachi, who ran the 400 meters in 48.2 seconds at Duke University, and nobody on Vetri can keep up with him.

  There's been trash talk lately, even talk of ringers.

"I did a cooking segment with Trevor Laws," Garces said of the 304-pound Eagle defensive tackle, "and he said he might show up. He's an honorary Garces Group member, just making some paellas with me yesterday."

Vetri forces say they will counter with Eagles tackle Winston Justice (6-foot-6, 320 pounds) and tight end Brent Celek (6-4, 255), Vetri regulars.

Both Garces and Vetri pledged $5,000 to the winner's charity foundation. Vetri supports child nutrition, Garces immigrant health.

The winner this year also gets a replica of the Super Bowl trophy, modified for the Turkey Bowl, made this fall with 40 layers of papier mâche by Kimberly Harrington, host at Amis.

Perhaps the biggest change this year will be the venue. Vetri asked the University of Pennsylvania for Franklin Field, where Red Grange once carried the ball for 331 yards in a game, and where the Eagles beat Vince Lombardi and the Packers to win the 1960 NFL championship.

Capacity is 52,500.

"I don't think we'll fill it," Vetri said.

Update: Vetri won over Garces with a final score of 1-0.

Vetri's zone defense shut down Garces and Jeff Michaud had both an interception and a sack at end of game to earn MVP.

"Heart, soul and determination always win over sheer talent any day of the week," Vetri commented after the victory.