LOS ANGELES (AP) — Maneet Chauhan delicately sprinkled saffron onto her gushtaba goat meatballs as the live audience began the final countdown. She and competitor Antonia Lofaso scrambled to finish their dishes on the Season 5 finale of Food Network’s “Tournament of Champions.”
As the timer buzzed, Chauhan tossed a mixing bowl onto the cluttered counter, throwing her hands up in surrender to the clock. She and Lofaso embraced, neither breaking a sweat.
History was on the line for Chauhan, a highly decorated Indian American chef famous for her mastery of spices, who was hoping to become the first two-time “Tournament of Champions” winner.
The show had already made history. Through its first five seasons, “ToC” as it is known, is the only cooking competition series that includes people of all genders where no man has ever won, let alone made it as a top-two finalist.
As the show readies to air its qualifying episodes for its sixth season starting Sunday, it remains to be seen whether women chefs continue to dominate “ToC.” But as viewers and chefs have noticed the trend, the show’s unique format is seen as both a reason for the results and proof of what woman chefs have been saying for years.
The brainchild of Guy Fieri
“ToC” first aired in March 2020 at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Food Network star Guy Fieri had been pitching the idea for years.
“This is the UFC of culinary. That’s what I was trying to create,” Fieri said from his sunny home in Santa Rosa, California. “I’m a fan of giving people a platform. There are other culinary competitions out there, but they’re a little more drama-oriented. I want to cut the (BS) and just see the best of the best going through the most.”
Fieri, host of “Guy’s Grocery Games” and “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” saw an opening for a no-frills, professional Food Network cooking competition that “Iron Chef America” had occupied from 2005 to 2018.
Though specialized competitions like “Beat Bobby Flay” and “Alex vs. America” existed, Fieri felt there was still no show that matched the “Iron Chef America” format. “ToC” would fill this space, but with unpredictable twists and turns.
How “Tournament of Champions” works
The show breaks contestants into geographic divisions, having chefs from all corners of the country compete one-on-one until only two finalists are left. In every match, the chefs are at the mercy of a creation Fieri calls “the Randomizer,” a spinning, five-category board inspired by the “Wheel of Fortune” wheel.
The categories include a required protein, produce ingredient, specialized equipment, cooking style and time limit. Contestants must work with the combination of single options “the Randomizer” lands on for each match. Requirements have ranged from cooking grasshoppers in paella style to combining mussels and cabbage.
Dishes are blind-judged in the kitchen where the food was cooked after the contestants have left the studio.
How “ToC” contestants are chosen
Fieri and his team seek out high-caliber, award-winning contestants from every part of the industry. Many players chosen to compete are relatively unknown outside the culinary world, which makes for high-stakes battles when they’re pitted against household names and big television personalities. This held true for “ToC” season one winner Brooke Williamson.
“I’ve done my best over the years to go in with a game plan and some familiarity with what I will be facing,” said Williamson, winner of Bravo’s season 14 of “Top Chef.” “Generally, that goes out the window the moment that clock starts or the moment the ingredients are revealed.”
Williamson, known for her produce-forward Southern California-style cuisine, has long been a force in the restaurant world. She started her career at age 18 in the kitchen of the Argyle Hotel in West Hollywood, which had a Michelin star at the time. She went on to prove her might at many iconic restaurants, eventually co-opening multiple eateries of her own. When the opportunity to compete on “ToC” arose, she saw it as a chance to expand her audience.
“I went into it with very few expectations, and I think that probably helped me in a lot of ways,” she said. “And having everyone else have low expectations of me as well made it so that I was the only one putting pressure on myself.”
A show where the underdog wins
In a remarkable series of events, Williamson, the self-proclaimed underdog, swept through her competitors, beating well-known Food Network stars Jet Tila and Lofaso. In the finale, she pulled off a huge upset, defeating renowned Food Network personality Amanda Freitag by one point.
“I didn’t know her. Holy (expletive). She just knocked it out,” Fieri said of his initial reaction to Williamson’s victory. At that moment, he knew “ToC” was different.
And the surprises didn’t end there. Season after season, lesser-known talents gave titans of Food Network and Iron Chefs a run for their money.
And above all, one fact remained clear: only women were making it to the finale.
A key change that may help women dominate “ToC”
“ToC” is the only televised food competition show that practices totally blind judging.
According to Fieri, who pushed for this method, the judges cannot, under any circumstances, know who is cooking in the competition at any point. Judges are sequestered in private trailers far from the kitchen and competitors until it’s time for them to taste.
Contestants are not allowed to post any clues about their location on social media to ensure the judges have no idea who is competing. Each contestant is shadowed by a culinary expert during the match, who ultimately reports back to the judges on what they’re eating and how it was prepared, without revealing who made the dish. The judges are always a panel of veteran culinary masters, both women and men.
Tiffani Faison, a James Beard Award-winning restaurateur who won “ToC” season three, feels blind judging plays a clear role in the outcome of “ToC.”
“It completely removes implicit bias,” said Faison. “There’s no one in front of you that looks a certain way, that speaks a certain way, that wants to tell you about what this dish means to them or where it’s from. It (is) just the food.”
Professional cooking a male-dominated profession
In the U.S., only 23.3% of chefs and head cooks in 2023 were women, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Only 6% of Michelin-starred restaurants worldwide are run by women, as reported by Chef’s Pencil. These gender trends seem to extend to popular televised food competitions.
Iron Chef America originally featured only one woman chef, Cat Cora, among three men. In the first 21 seasons of “Top Chef,” 71% of the winners have been men. Of the 58 seasons of Food Network’s fan-favorite show “Chopped,” nearly 60% of the victors have been men, with women comprising a minority of contestants in the earlier seasons.
“Could be a fluke, could be just a run. But maybe we’re learning something,” said Fieri, who couldn’t ignore the undeniable pattern.
“For the longest time, as women chefs, we’ve been trying to say, ‘Judge us on our food, not on who we are.’ And that’s exactly what’s happening on this show,” said Chauhan, who beat out 40 male chefs for the executive chef position at Vermilion in Chicago at age 23.
Chauhan, like many other women chefs, was no stranger to having to prove her skills in kitchens dominated by men. She was the only woman among 70 male students at her hotel management school in Manipal, India, and she graduated at the top of her class. She said women weren’t encouraged to pursue professional culinary careers. Her parents supported her unconventional goals while acknowledging the obstacles she could face.
“Do whatever you want, just be the best at it, because that’s the only way you’ll succeed,” Chauhan said they told her. “And that’s exactly what I did.”
Other factors why women may dominate “ToC”
“I think that part of the reason why women do so well on “ToC” is because we are a little bit more focused,” said “ToC” season four winner Mei Lin, who grew up in family-owned restaurants and felt pressure to prove herself in kitchens run by men. “We’re a lot more organized in the kitchen. We just put our heads down and work, and that’s really all it is.”
Chauhan said “the Randomizer” forces contestants to multitask, a skill she believes women are raised to excel in.
“We as women are conditioned to do this on a daily basis. You are doing 20 things at a given moment,” said Chauhan, reflecting on her role as a mother. “To win a competition like ‘ToC,’ you need to be multitasking. You just can’t concentrate on one thing and say that this is it. Each and every ingredient needs that much attention.”
Williamson added that women competitors may be working off past experience in the industry.
“I think women are very thoughtful about how they enter a situation like ‘ToC,’ especially having been put in a position to have to prove themselves throughout their career,” she said.
When Fieri announced Chauhan as the fifth season “ToC” winner and first two-time champion, she fell to the floor as the audience erupted in cheers. She looked to her friend and competitor, Lofaso, who immediately embraced her. The two mouthed “I love you” to each other as Lofaso left the kitchen, tears welling in Chauhan’s eyes.
“What really makes a big difference is when there are young girls who look like me, who reach out to me and say, ‘You can do it. I’m going to push myself, and I’ll do it too,’” Chahaun said.
Who’s won Food Network’s “Tournament of Champions”
Season 1: Brooke Williamson
Season 2: Maneet Chauhan
Season 3: Tiffani Faison
Season 4: Mei Lin
Season 5: Chauhan
