GULF SHORES — Get your taste buds ready for the Fifth Annual National Shrimp Festival Restaurant Challenge, sponsored by Zatarain’s.

The event will feature many of the best recipes from restaurants along the Alabama Gulf Coast in a competition to create this year’s best Alabama Wild Shrimp dish and take home the Zatarain’s Trophy.

Formerly known as the Chef’s Challenge, it is set to take place Sept. 12-13 at The Gulf Coast Culinary Institute at Faulkner State Community College in Gulf Shores.

“It has grown bigger and better each year through the support of our area restaurants and, of course, our title sponsor Zatarain’s,” Alabama Gulf Coast Area Chamber of Commerce Special Events Director Ann Motes said. “It will be hard to top the Hangout’s Fiery Irie Island shrimp dish from last year.”

Motes said there are still several slots open for area restaurants that want to take part in the event.

“Instead of one day, we set aside two days for the competition this year,” she said. “So there are plenty of slots available for our local restaurants to show us their best dishes, which must include Alabama Wild Shrimp and at least one of Zatarain’s 200 product.”

The dishes will be rated by a panel of three judges whose identities remain a secret except to Chamber staff members.

Motes said the name change for the competition came about because some of the area’s best restaurants do not have a “chef” per se.

“I’ve had many restaurant owners in the past say they would love to take part, but they didn’t employ an actual chef,” Motes said. “While that’s never been a requirement, we thought the name change would put that notion to rest once and for all.”

For more information on how to participate in the challenge as a competing chef, contact the Chamber’s Special Events Assistant Lauren Turner at 251-968-4237.

The first place winner will receive $2,000 and a set of Royal Prestige cookware. Second place wins $500 and third $250.