Tournament of Champions season 5 starts on Sunday, February 18th at 8pm on Food Network and 32* chefs are competing for the biggest prize yet of $150,000. While the main tournament doesn't start until February 18th, there are qualifiers that will air on Wednesday, February 7th and 14th where 16 chefs are competing for the four 8th seeds of the main tournament.
The chefs competing in the qualifiers for the 8th seeds are: Aaron May, Adriana Urbina, Bruce Kalman, Claudia Sandoval, Chris Scott, Demetrio Zavala, Kevin Lee, Gerald Sombright, Ilan Hall, Justin Sutherland, Leah Cohen, Maria Mazon, Michael Reed, Nini Nguyen, Pyet Despain, and Ray Garcia. There are eight chefs from the East and eight chefs from the West and there will be four winners of 8th seeds to join the actual tournament (2 for East and 2 for West).
The chefs competing in the main tournament East bracket include: Eric Adjepong, Karen Akunowicz, Kelsey Barnard Clark, Maneet Chauhan (season 2 winner), Tobias Dorzon, Tiffani Faison (season 3 winner), Amanda Freitag, Jose Garces, Stephanie Izard, Marc Murphy, Britt Rescigno, Jonathon Sawyer, and Dale Talde (plus the 2 qualifier winners).
It is important to note that there are only 13 chefs named for the East bracket and when you add the 2 qualifiers, you only get 15 instead of 16. The obvious speculation is that Darnell Ferguson was involved in Tournament of Champions which was taped before his arrest. He has been involved in every season to date, so there is no reason to believe he was not involved in this season. It will be interesting to see how they edit the show if that is the case, but I would expect he didn't make it far if they didn't do any re-filming.
The 16 chefs competing in the West bracket include: Carlos Anthony, Shirley Chung, Mei Lin (season 4 winner), Antonia Lofaso, Crista Luedtke, Brian Malarkey, Shota Nakajima, Joe Sasto, Adam Sobel, Casey Thompson, Jet Tila, Michael Voltaggio, season 1 champion Brooke Williamson (season 1 winner), and Lee Anne Wong (plus the 2 qualifier winners).
Simon Majumdar and Justin Warner will once again be providing the play-by-play analysis of the competition, and Hunter Fieri will again be following the action backstage with interviews. The judges this year include Donatella Arpaia, Scott Conant, Cat Cora, Rocco DiSpirito, Susan Feniger, Lorena Garcia, Carla Hall, Michael Mina, Eric Ripert, Marcus Samuelsson, Nancy Silverton, Ming Tsai, Michael White, Jonathan Waxman, Geoffrey Zakarian and Andrew Zimmern.
This post will be used to track the winners for each episode, so come back after each episode to see who won the matchups on Tournament of Champions and to discuss the episodes. Also, the Tournament of Champions season 5 bracket will be added here once it is revealed. The finale will air on Sunday, April 7th where the winner will be crowned and awarded $150,000.
UPDATE - The Tournament of Champions season 5 bracket has been revealed and it is below:
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| Photo - Food Network |
Continue reading to see who won the matchups in each episode......
Qualifier episode 1 - West Round 1 scores - Kevin Lee 79, Bruce Kalman 75, Aaron May 74 and Maria Mazon 74. Top 2 advanced to a head-to-head matchup where Kevin Lee defeated Bruce Kalman 80-76. Kevin will be the 8th seed against Brooke Williamson in the main tournament.
East Round 1 scores - Nini Nguyen 90, Leah Cohen 80, Ilan Hall 77, Gerald Sombright 74. Top 2 advanced to a head-to-head matchup where Nini Nguyen defeated Leah Cohen 81-78. Nini will be the 8th seed against Maneet Chauhan in the main tournament.
Qualifier episode 2 - West Round 1 scores - Ray Garcia 80, Michael Reed 77, Claudia Sandoval 74, and Pyet Despain 68. Top 2 advanced to a head-to-head matchup where Michael Reed defeated Ray Garcia 79-78. Michael will be the 8th seed against Mei Lin in the main tournament.
East Round 1 scores - Demetrio Zavala 84, Chris Scott 79, Adriana Urbina 74 and Justin Sutherland 74. Top 2 advanced to a head-to-head matchup where Chris Scott defeated Demetrio Zavala 75-71. Chris will be the 8th seed against Tiffani Faison in the main tournament.
Episode 1 - Jet Tila defeated Brian Malarkey by a score of 84-82. Marc Murphy defeated Jose Garces by a score of 85-82. Britt Rescigno defeated Jonathon Sawyer by a score of 78-74. Mei Lin defeated Michael Reed by a score of 79-76.
Episode 2 - Shirley Chung defeated Joe Sasto by a score of 89-86. Tobias Dorzon defeated Kelsey Barnard Clark by a score of 83-79. Amanda Freitag defeated Darnell Ferguson by a score of 79-77 and Darnell was not edited out of the episode. Kevin Lee pulled off an upset and defeated Brooke Williamson by a score of 88-87.
Episode 3 - Eric Adjepong defeated Stephanie Izard by a score of 90-88. Antonia Lofaso defeated Casey Thompson by a score of 92-83. Lee Anne Wong defeated Adam Sobel by a score of 93-89. Maneet Chauhan defeated Nini Nguyen by a score of 83-76.
Episode 4 - Michael Voltaggio defeated Crista Luedtke by a score of 92-89. Dale Talde defeated Karen Akunowicz by a score of 84-82. Carlos Anthony defeated Shota Nakajima by a score of 82-81. Tiffani Faison defeated Chris Scott by a score of 93-85.
Episode 5 - Antonia Lofaso defeated Michael Voltaggio by a score of 84-82. Kevin Lee defeated Shirley Chung by a score of 90-86. Tobias Dorzon defeated Dale Talde by a score of 80-75. Maneet Chauhan Eric Adjepong by a score of 86-83.
Episode 6 - Amanda Freitag defeated Tiffani Faison by a score of 81-79. Carlos Anthony and Jet Tila tied with a score of 79-79 and the tiebreaker is points for taste which Jet Tila won 41-39. Britt Rescigno defeated Marc Murphy by a score of 84-80. Mei Lin defeated Lee Anne Wong by a score of 89-83.
Episode 7 - Jet Tila defeated Mei Lin by a score of 82-79. Britt Rescigno defeated Amanda Freitag by a score of 83-80. Antonia Lofaso defeated Kevin Lee by a score of 85-81. Maneet Chauhan defeated Tobias Dorzon by a score of 86-84.
This year I will also keep updating the bracket below with the Tournament of Champions season 5 winners, so see below for the current bracket.
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