Are you feeling lucky? A new Food Network competition show is bringing elements of poker into the kitchen.
“Wildcard Kitchen” is a first-of-its-kind competition show that blends poker with a fast-paced cooking competition. The show is hosted by New York City chef Eric Adjepong.
“I’m a food nut. I love food, cooking it, the science of it, the nutrition, the service of it all. I’ve dedicated my life to food and everything that revolves around it,” said Adjepong. “I fell in love with food at a really, really young age watching TV, ironically cooking shows. It’s so ironic but really cool for me and surreal to be in this position to actually be hosting a show that hopefully kids young enough to be influenced, can be influenced by it as well.”
Adjepong says that “Wildcard Kitchen” brings a cool, speakeasy vibe to the competition, with similar elements to what you’d have on a night out playing poker. The chefs who will be competing this season include Maneet Chauhan, Brian Malarkey and Marc Murphy; Gabriele Bertaccini, Rocco Dispirito and Antonia Lofaso; Jet Tila, Eddie Jackson and Viet Pham; and Stephanie Izard, Joe Sasto and Justin Sutherland. Anne Burrell, Esther Choi and Scott Conant will be judging the fierce competition.
In each episode, the contestants are up against three rounds of competition. As the host, Adjepong acts as the house and deals cards to the competitors, which can range from ingredients they must use, a style they have to cook in, and more, and each person is given a wild card. They are tasked to create unpredictable dishes based on the cards they are dealt, which can throw the chefs into a loop.
“There’s Community Cards where everyone has to pretty much adhere to. Let’s say everyone has to make fish and chips in 20 minutes, but you have to use anchovies. But then let’s say I give you a wild card where you have the exclusive use of all the salt in the kitchen, and another wild card is that someone else has an extra 20 minutes to cook. The chefs bid depending on their hand and also knowing their opponent as well, it’s competitive,” said Adjepong. “It’s fun, it’s competitive. kind of see the true competitive nature of the chefs.”
Each chef is given $5,000 to compete with to bet or claim community cards, with the winner of each episode capable of winning up to $15,000.
“You can go all in, you can raise the stakes — there’s so many different aspects that are very similar to poker. This is where it’s really fun and each episode is so different because chefs are playing with different money scenarios,” said Adjepong.
Despite playing out all the potential scenarios before shooting, Adjepong says that anything is possible in this competition.
“We shot eight episodes this season, and there’s maybe three hands where I was just like, wait, I have no idea how you’re gonna get out this box. Like what are you gonna do, how are you going to do it in time?” said Adjepong. “To be honest, this is the beauty of or the brilliance of these chefs that we ask and invited to come out and play ‘Wildcard Kitchen’ with us because not everybody thinks the same.”
When the show premieres, Adjepong is looking forward to audiences seeing a new side to these chefs as they bring the fire to the competition.
“We show a different side of chefs, the same way that you would hang out with your friends hanging out at a speakeasy or a bar or a restaurant really late at night. You put your hair back and really see your friends for who they are. You get to experience that with the show,” I love that. But at the same time, these super competitive, really high-stakes chefs want to win, and there’s some crazy scenarios that pop out of it.”
“Wildcard Kitchen” premieres on Food Network at 9 p.m. on March. 12.
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