For a long time, Chopped was my comfort TV show of choice. The bite-sized segments and wild card elements kept the show entertaining, not to mention the celebrity judges and their quirks. (If you still haven’t learned not to serve Scott Conant raw red onions 61 seasons in, you deserve to be chopped.) I still find myself putting the show on when I need background noise, especially on a plane. I’ve dabbled in other Food Network shows over the years, but nothing has been able to take Chopped’s place.
Until 2020, when Food Network debuted its very own Cinematic Universe show, pulling in chefs who have gained recognition from across the network and beyond, including Bravo’s Top Chef and Fox’s MasterChef. The concept behind Tournament of Champions, which is hosted by Guy Fieri, is pretty straightforward — a seeded bracket of top-tier chefs compete against each other to show off their cooking skills, with eliminations every round until a champion is crowned. The gamified elements include a giant slot machine called the Randomizer, which Fieri spins to determine dish requirements like protein, produce, equipment, style, and more. To remove bias, the dishes are judged blind and based solely on taste, how well they use the Randomizer, and presentation. Two food experts, authors Justin Warner and Simon Majumdar, interview the chefs while they cook, providing context when needed and presenting the dish for judging.
The most impressive part is the big names who remain up for cooking on TV (Alex Guarnaschelli, Elizabeth Falkner, Jose Garces, to name a few), perhaps partially a credit to the goodwill Fieri continues to engender among his fellow chefs. There’s something very pure about watching chefs competing with — and being judged by — their peers, with what feels like very little ego.
Not much has changed about the show format in its first few seasons, and what has changed largely follows the typical food show trajectory: an increase in the number of episodes, length of the show, and the advertisers that come along for the ride. It’s clear why Food Network loves a Guy Fieri show — he clues the audience in on his knowledge in a non-pretentious way, and he’s a big fan of every contestant, whether they’re an Iron Chef or a Guy’s Grocery Games winner. He’s a chef’s chef who doesn’t take up too much air as host, so much so that we can forgive him giving his son Hunter a job as backstage interviewer.
Now in its sixth season, Fieri and team have changed up a few things: they’ve removed the slightly arbitrary East and West division, which grouped contestants into two brackets depending on where they’re based. All previous Tournament of Champions winners (four extremely impressive women over five seasons) are now “retired” from the competition, giving someone new a better chance of winning.
But the core of the show remains delightful — this season’s number one seeds, who have all historically gone very far in this show, include Antonia Lofaso, Jet Tila, Britt Rescigno, and Tobias Dorzon, who are — for now — ranked above talents like Amanda Freitag, Stephanie Izard, and Rocco DiSpirito. The show is no Chopped (the whopping two-hour episode length requires a decent amount of commitment) but for anyone who’s been watching Food Network as long as I have, the fun is in watching these highly lauded chefs show off their skills, get stumped by the Randomizer, and cheering each other on. For TV’s most famous chefs, it’s a chance to prove they still have what it takes, and even better, do it while hanging out with their friends.
