Another feather was added to Connecticut's cap.
A man who lives among us has just been declared the “Noodle World Champion.”
This was not a single noodle as the title suggests, but a dish with double noodles. Undoubtedly, the tender lobster meat and rich goat cheese enhanced the flavor.
At the 2025 World Food Championships, known as the March Madness of Food competition, Rocky Julianelle, 67, of East Haven took home the world pasta title for his dish, which he described as a miniature lobster macaroni and cheese rolled into a handmade crepe, topped off with butter-poached lobster on top microgreen salad with a citrus vinaigrette.
This is where the pasta shines: inside there were many small pasta tubes with cheese and lobster and on the outside there was the larger handmade pasta crepe. “It’s noodles within noodles,” Julianelle said.
Julianelle, who primarily owns a home remodeling business and is a part-time competitive chef, won $10,000 for winning the pasta category and is now moving on to the next level for a chance to win $150,000 at the Arkansas Final Table competition, which features chefs from more than 40 countries and every U.S. state, a spokesman for the organization said.
The final table competition will take place in spring 2026.
He estimates he has won about $90,000 in decades of competitions of all kinds and at all levels, not a bad sum for a man who is a self-taught chef and makes a living as a construction contractor. He is already training in his kitchen for the big competition.
“I love cooking, especially in competitions, because I always try to get the best out of every dish,” he said. “I’ve always loved cooking for people you care about and seeing them smile.”
In this competition with his wife Paula on his team and his girlfriend Carol Koty
His dish was judged on the “Eat methodology of execution, appearance and taste,” Julianelle said.
Regarding Koty, he said: “Without their help, I don’t think we would have won.”
Julianelle, who grew up in New Haven with Italian parents and chefs, said he specializes in Italian-American classics and Northeastern regional dishes and combined the two for his award-winning dish. He was also formerly from West Haven.
He has been competing in the World Food Championships for about 14 years and has won
2019 World Chili Champion and 2022 World Soup Champion for a tomato velvet bisque soup with a crab tower in the middle.
The World Food Championships, held in Indiana this year, took him to many places including Las Vegas, Florida and Texas. Participants must qualify to take part and there are 10 categories with 20 participants each.
A WFC spokesman said the categories in Indianapolis are: bacon, barbecue, burger, chef, dessert, live fire, pasta, sandwich, seafood and vegetarian.
The food competitions in general have provided him and his wife of 35 years with many interesting trips for 30 years, and with some of the prize money they would have a nice vacation together, he said, and their only daughter, a fashion designer in New York, would get a piece. If he wins the $150,000, they'll take another vacation and he'll invest the rest since he's so close to retirement.
He said having Paula on his team and cooking alongside her at home all these years has strengthened their relationship.
The trust and bond built through cooking together “brought us closer together.” They never argue, he said. Together, they practice efficiency techniques needed in competitive, timed cooking, he said.
“The kitchen is a big connection for our relationship. And it has been for 20 to 30 years. You believe in each other all these years,” said Julianelle. “We had a common interest and looked forward to spending time together. This strengthens the bond of the relationship.”
Julianelle said that when choosing a career, he thought about becoming a chef, a contractor and even a landscape painter because he had a talent for all of them. He worked in restaurants years ago after starting his remodeling business and found it tedious day in and day out.
He has owned All Quality Building and Remodeling in East Haven for 42 years.
He worked part-time as a chef to earn money and chose landscape painting and later competitive cooking as hobbies.
All in all, “I'm an artist at heart,” Julianelle said, noting that he uses creativity in all his food endeavors.
Julianelle said he was a perfectionist who paid attention to details, whether it was building or cooking.
“I always feel like something can be better,” he said.